Phil Stooke
Slight change of plan - tomorrow the lunar site selection begins. Today, a preview of my LPSC poster. I compare LROC-NAC and OHRC images of some landing sites - OHRC has 4x the resolution of typical LROC-NAC images at the moment. At first NAC had a resolution of 50 cm/pixel from 50 km but now it is at 100 km the resolution is about 1 m/pixel, worse at slant range very near the pole. So OHRC gives more detail, and where it shows something significant...
#moon #OHRC #LRO #LPSC
Mar 6 at 7:40amWeb
Show threadPhil StookeMar 6
... I show the new thing: the LEV-1 hopping rover for SLIM, rover turning marks at Chandrayaan 3, a row of bounce pits for Chandrayaan 2, the remarkable footpad gouges at IM-2 Athena's site. I point out that the new imaging service from Firefly, Ocula, will equal this and we need to get those images into PDS. Later I will give a link to the full size poster.
#moon #OHRC #LRO #LPSC
Show threadThomas SturmMar 8
@PhilStooke The OHRC images are fascinating - especially the IM2 crash landing site is quite something with the high resolution photo.
Show threadPhil StookeMar 9
@tsturm Thanks. It is hard to believe that IM-2 could drag its footpads along the ground like that - the attitude control thrusters must have been working very hard to try to keep it upright - but I can't see an alternative explanation.
Show threadThomas SturmMar 9

@PhilStooke It would be great if a robotic lander could drop a camera a few seconds before the attempted landing - some sort of lawn dart with a fisheye lens - so that we can get video of the actual landing or crash.

But in this case, your interpretation sounds spot-on. IM-2 dragged its feet all across that first crater.

Show threadPhil StookeMar 9
@tsturm Dropping a camera has been considered. In fact IM-1 carried one called Eaglecam which was supposed to do exactly that, but again the landing was only partly successful and Eaglecam was not ejected until a few days after landing... and failed to send any images.
Show threadThomas SturmMar 9
@PhilStooke Ah! Too bad it didn’t work as expected… space is still very very hard.