Laser pulses fired at retroreflectors on the Moon provide very accurate ranges. Analysis yields information on Earth, Moon, and orbit. The highly accurate retroreflector positions have uncertainties less than a meter. Tides on the Moon show strong dissipation, with Q = 33 ± 4 at a month and a weak dependence on period. Lunar rotation depends on interior properties; a fluid core is indicated wit...

Mother Nature is an exceedingly exacting old lady. She guards her treasures well and does not yield them on casual inquiry. To be sure, she has spread the stuff and substance of the Universe before everyone so that it might be described and classified. For generations men have eagerly approached this monumental job until at last there is available a fairly satisfactory account of the structure ...

During the last 18 months, the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) of NASA Ames has transitioned its rover software from a classic ad hoc system to a ServiceOriented Robotic Architecture (SORA). Under SORA, rover controller functionalities are encapsulated as a set of services. The services interact using two distinct modalities depending on the need: remote method invocation or data distribution....

We report on the first results of a search for molecular hydrogen emission from protoplanetary disks using CRIRES, ESO's new VLT Adaptive Optics high resolution near-infrared spectrograph. We observed the classical T Tauri star LkHα 264 and the debris disk 49 Cet, and searched for υ = 1 − 0 S(1) H 2 emission at 2.1218 µm, υ = 1 − 0 S(0) H 2 emission at 2.2233 µm and υ = 2 − 1 S(1) H 2 emission ...

Most of the craters on the surface of the Moon were created by the collision of minor bodies of the Solar System, in particular asteroids coming from the Main Belt as a consequence of different types of resonance. Our aim is to investigate the dynamics of such asteroids, paying special attention on the hyperbolic invariant manifolds associated with the equilibrium point L2 of the Earth – Moon s...

Distant Retrograde Orbits in the Earth-Moon system are gaining in popularity as stable ‘parking’ orbits for various conceptual missions. To investigate the stability of potential Distant Retrograde Orbits, simulations were executed, with propagation running over a thirty-year period. Initial conditions for the vehicle state were limited such that the position and velocity vectors were in the Ea...

Introduction The Aristarchus Plateau (Figure 1) is a distinctive, geologically complex volcanic highland in northern Oceanus Procellarum. It is roughly diamond shaped, 170 by 220 km across, and up to 2 km higher than the surrounding mare [1, 2]. The roughly linear edges of the plateau suggest that it is fault bounded. The plateau edges are essentially radial and concentric to the center of the ...