LRO-LAMP failsafe door-open performance: improving FUV measurements of dayside lunar hydration

Michael W. Davis; Thomas K. Greathouse; David E. Kaufmann; Kurt D. Retherford; Maarten H. Versteeg

doi:10.1117/12.2274009

29 August 2017 LRO-LAMP failsafe door-open performance: improving FUV measurements of dayside lunar hydration

Michael W. Davis, Thomas K. Greathouse, David E. Kaufmann, Kurt D. Retherford, Maarten H. Versteeg

Proceedings Volume 10397, UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XX; 1039717 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2274009
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2017, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) is a lightweight (6.1 kg), lowpower (4.5 W), ultraviolet spectrograph based on the Alice instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft and NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. Its primary job is to identify and localize exposed water frost in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) near the Moon’s poles, and to characterize landforms and albedos in PSRs. LRO launched on June 18, 2009 and reached lunar orbit four days later. LAMP operated with its failsafe door closed for its first seven years in flight. The failsafe door was opened in October 2016 to increase light throughput during dayside operations at the expense of no longer having the capacity to take further dark observations and slightly more operational complexity to avoid saturating the instrument. This one-time irreversible operation was approved after extensive review, and was conducted flawlessly. The increased throughput allows measurement of dayside hydration in one orbit, instead of averaging multiple orbits together to reach enough signal-to-noise. The new measurement mode allows greater time resolution of dayside water migration for improved investigations into the source and loss processes on the lunar surface. LAMP performance and optical characteristics after the failsafe door opening are described herein, including the new effective area, wavelength solution, and resolution.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Michael W. Davis, Thomas K. Greathouse, David E. Kaufmann, Kurt D. Retherford, and Maarten H. Versteeg "LRO-LAMP failsafe door-open performance: improving FUV measurements of dayside lunar hydration", Proc. SPIE 10397, UV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Space Instrumentation for Astronomy XX, 1039717 (29 August 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2274009

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