Moon Apollo 17 LROC NAC DEM 1.5m v1
Product Information:
This is a digital elevation model (DEM/DTM) of the Apollo 17 landing site generated from stereo images provided by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). Four LROC NAC stereo image pairs at pixel scales of 0.5 meters per pixel (m) and stereo angles ranging from about 25° to 30° were combined to one DEM. A 200 m wide gap extending in the along-track direction at 30.7°E was filled using a fifths stereo image pair with lower image resolution (1.0 m) and low stereo quality.
The output DEM has a resolution of 1.5 m and was registered horizontally to the Mean Earth/Polar Axis-coordinates of the ALSEP central station (Davies & Colvin, 2000), and vertically to LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) data. Elevation values are in meters and referred to a radius of 1737.4 km.
Stereo image pairs used for DEM creation (img1/img2): M137346262/M137353046; M159746082/M159752868; M190394800/M190401948; M134985003/M134991788; M152669024/M152675807
Mission and Instrument Information:
he Apollo 17 mission provided the scientific world with the best lunar sample return in both potential quantity of information and variety of sample types (NASA, 1972). Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, still holds the distinction of being the last man to walk on the Moon, as no humans have visited the Moon since December 14, 1972. Apollo 17 hosted the first scientist-astronaut to land on moon: Harrison Schmitt. The lunar rover vehicle traversed a total of 30.5 kilometers. Lunar surface-stay time was 75 hours, and lunar orbit time 17 hours. Astronauts gathered 110.4 kilograms, or 243 pounds, of material (NASA, 2018).
The lunar landing site was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area, which was picked for Apollo 17 as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions, as well as from Luna 16 and 20 missions, might be found. From the standpoint both of geologic features and of samples returned, the Taurus-Littrow region represents the most diverse landing site of the Apollo missions (NASA, 1973).
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft to the Moon in June 2009 (Tooley et al., 2010) carrying a variety of instruments that continue to return high-resolution images of the lunar surface from its eccentric polar mapping orbit (Petro et al., 2019).
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a robotic spacecraft designed to acquire data to prepare for and support future human exploration of the Moon (PDS IMG, 2018). The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) is a system of three cameras mounted on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that capture high resolution black and white images and moderate resolution multi-spectral images of the lunar surface (ASU, 2019).
Two narrow-angle cameras (NACs) on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) make high-resolution, black-and-white images of the surface, capturing images of the poles with resolutions down to 1 meter (about 3.3 feet; NASA, 2017). The LROC data sets are produced by the LROC Team at the Tempe campus of Arizona State University (PDS IMG, 2018).
The LOLA has collected over more than 6.5 billion measurements of global surface height with a vertical precision of ~10 cm and an accuracy of ~1m (Mazarico et al., 2013). With such highly accurate global coverage, the resulting topographic map has become the reference geodetic framework for the lunar community and has led to the highest resolution and most accurate polar DEMs to date (Barker et al., 2016).
References:
Arizona State University (ASU) (2019). About Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. https://www.lroc.sese.asu.edu
Davies, M., & Colvin, T. (2000). Lunar Coordinates in the Regions of Apollo Landers. American Geophysical Union, 105(E8), 20277-20280. https://doi.org/10.1029/1999JE001165
Haase, I., Wählisch, M., Gläser, P., Oberst, J., & Robinson, M. (2018). Coordinates and Maps of the Apollo 17 Landing Site. Earth and Space Science, 6(1), 59-95. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EA000408
Petro, N. E., Keller, J. W., Cohen, B. A., & McClanahan, T. P. (2019). Ten years of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Advancing lunar science and context for future lunar exploration. Paper presented at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX. https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/2780.pdf
Planetary Data Systems (PDS) Cartography and Imaging Sciences (IMG) (2018). Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/lro_mission.html
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (2018). Apollo 17. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo17.html
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (2017). Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. LRO Spacecraft Instruments: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/spacecraft/index.html
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (1973). Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report, NASA SP-330. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/as17psr.pdf
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (1972). NASA News Press Kit, Release No. 72-220. https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/A17_PressKit.pdf
Tooley, C. R., Houghton, M. B., Saylor Jr., S. S., Peddie, C., Everett, D. F., Baker, C. L., & Safdie, K. N. (2010). Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission and spacecraft design. Space Science Review, 150, 23–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-009-9624-4
- Publisher
- USGS Astrogeology Science Center
- Publication Date
- 1 May 2018
- Author
- Technical University Berlin (TUB)
- Originator
- German Aerospace Center (DLR), LROC Team
- Group
- PDS
- Added to Astropedia
- 9 August 2018
- Modified
- 24 March 2023
General
- Purpose
The DEM of the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the Moon was created for orthorectification and mapping purposes. It also supported our cartographic analysis of the Apollo 17 landing site.
- Geospatial Data Presentation Form
- Digital Elevation Model, Topographic Map, Raster Data
- Edition
- 1
- Online Linkage
- https://planetarymaps.usgs.gov/mosaic/Apollo17/APOLLO17_DTM_150CM.TIFF
- Native Data Set Environment
- Supplemental Information
- http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/images/index.php/, https://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html, http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/featured_sites/lroc_features/Apollo%2017/feature_highlights
Keywords
- System
- Earth
- Target
- Moon
- Theme
- Topography, Geographic Information System (GIS)
- Mission
- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Instrument
- LROC
- Search Terms
- Moon, LROC NAC, Apollo 17, DEM, DTM
Contact and Distribution
- Access Constraints
- none
- Use Constraints
- Please cite authors
Data Status and Quality
- Time Period of Content Begin
- 28 July 2010
- Time Period of Content End
- 30 April 2012
- Currentness Reference
- Publication date
- Progress
- Complete
- Update Frequency
- None planned
- Logical Consistency Report
- The DEM is referenced to the Mean Earth/Polar Axis-coordinates of the ALSEP radio transmitter (housed by the central station) given by Davies and Colvin (2000) and thus only as accurate as the coordinates derived from interferometry (~10 m). Vertically the DEM was controlled to selected tracks of LRO’s Laser Altimeter (LOLA). The standard deviation of the elevation differences of the selected LOLA profiles and the corresponding elevations of the controlled NAC DEM was ± 1.3m.
- Completeness Report
horizontally: Mean Earth/Polar Axis coordinates of the ALSEP central station given by Davies and Colvin (2000); vertically: selected LOLA profiles.
- Process Date
- 15 May 2014
- Process Description
To process DEMs from LROC NAC stereo images we used the DLR photogrammetric stereo-processing software system. The underlying programming platform is the Video Image Communication and Retrieval (VICAR) Image Processing System. See Haase et al. (2018) for a detailed description of the DEM processing.
- Horizontal Positional Accuracy Value
- 10
- Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report
- Accurate to Control Net
- Vertical Positional Accuracy Value
- 1.3
- Vertical Positional Accuracy Report
- Accurate to Control Net
- Entity and Attribute Detailed Description
- Height (Elevation m) = DN; Planetary Radius = DN + 1737400 m
Lineage
- PDS Status
- PDS 3 Compatible
- Source PDS Archive
- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Source Originator
- Arizona State University
- Source Title
- LRO LROC images
- Source Online Linkage
- https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/volumes/lro.html , https://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/portal/lro_mission.html
- Type of Source Media
- Online
- Attribute Accuracy Report
- Accurate to Control Net
Geospatial Information
- Location Description
- Taurus-Littrow Valley (Apollo 17 landing site), Quad 43 (Lunar 1:1M scheme), LQ-12 (Lunar 1:2.5M scheme)
- Minimum Latitude
- 19.977815
- Maximum Latitude
- 20.363812
- Minimum Longitude
- 30.428633
- Maximum Longitude
- 30.916123
- Direct Spatial Reference Method
- Raster
- Object Type
- Pixel
- Lines (pixels)
- 7800
- Samples (pixels)
- 9240
- Bit Type
- 32
- Quad Name
- LQ-12
- Radius A
- 1737400
- Radius C
- 1737400
- Control Net
- LOLA and ALSEP
- Bands
- 1
- Pixel Resolution (meters/pixel)
- 1.5
- Scale (pixels/degree)
- 20215.5669263
- Horizontal Coordinate System Units
- Meters
- Map Projection Name
- Transverse Mercator
- Latitude Type
- Planetocentric
- Longitude Direction
- Positive East
- Longitude Domain
- -180 to 180