Illumination and Temperature on Rough Terrain: Fast Methods for Solving the Radiosity Equation

No abstract availabl

Precise orbit determination of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft and geodetic inversion for the Martian gravity field

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-75).Remote sensing techniques are widely used in planetary science for acquiring precise, global inforniation about an object. One of these techniques consists of the study of the radio signals emitted by a spacecraft, from which it is possible to derive the forces acted upon it. For this project, we used the radio science data from the Mars-orbiting spacecraft "IMars Odyssey". Launched in April 2001, more than two years of daily radio tracking of this satellite are now available, allowing for Precision Orbit Determination. Using the program Geodyn, the position of the spacecraft with respect to the centre of mass of Mars is typically determined down to a few meters, while the velocity precision is better than 1 mm/s. Once a large number of orbits have been calculated, it is possible to use the residuals (misfits of the data to the modeled trajectory) to solve for some of the model parameters. Here, we determine the coefficients of the spherical harmonic expansion of the gravity field, as well as the drag coefficient of the satellite (a proxy for atmospheric density). To obtain such results, many high-precision data sets and models are combined: electromagnetic wave propagation, with tropospheric and ionospheric corrections; tracking station positions, including tidal and tracking station corrections; solar and thermal radiation; ephemerides of all the major bodies in the Solar System, plus the Martian moons. The inputs of the orbit determination program are the radio signals (Doppler and range), the angular momentum desaturations t.inings, the attitude (of the main bus of course, but also of the high-gain antenna and the solar panels), and a model of the spacecraft. Some results of this radio science experiment are pre-sented here, in the form(cont.) of gravity field spherical harmonic expansions sensed by the spacecraft.by Erwan Matías Alexandre Mazarico.S.M

On the GRAIL-LLR Low-Degree Gravity Field Inconsistencies

No abstract availabl

Estimating the Lunar Core Equatorial Ellipticity using Lunar Laser Ranging

No abstract availabl

LU60645GT and MA132843GT Catalogues of Lunar and Martian Impact Craters Developed Using a Crater Shape-based Interpolation Crater Detection Algorithm for Topography Data

For Mars, 57,633 craters from the manually assembled catalogues and 72,668 additional craters identified using several crater detection algorithms (CDAs) have been merged into the MA130301GT catalogue. By contrast, for the Moon the most complete previous catalogue contains only 14,923 craters. Two recent missions provided higher-quality digital elevation maps (DEMs): SELENE (in 1/16 resolution) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (we used up to 1/512). This was the main motivation for work on the new Crater Shape-based interpolation module, which improves previous CDA as follows: (1) it decreases the number of false-detections for the required number of true detections; (2) it improves detection capabilities for very small craters; and (3) it provides more accurate automated measurements of craters' properties. The results are: (1) LU60645GT, which is currently the most complete (up to D>=8 km) catalogue of Lunar craters; and (2) MA132843GT catalogue of Martian craters complete up to D>=2 km, which is the extension of the previous MA130301GT catalogue. As previously achieved for Mars, LU60645GT provides all properties that were provided by the previous Lunar catalogues, plus: (1) correlation between morphological descriptors from used catalogues; (2) correlation between manually assigned attributes and automated measurements; (3) average errors and their standard deviations for manually and automatically assigned attributes such as position coordinates, diameter, depth/diameter ratio, etc; and (4) a review of positional accuracy of used datasets. Additionally, surface dating could potentially be improved with the exhaustiveness of this new catalogue. The accompanying results are: (1) the possibility of comparing a large number of Lunar and Martian craters, of e.g. depth/diameter ratio and 2D profiles; (2) utilisation of a method for re-projection of datasets and catalogues, which is very useful for craters that are very close to poles; and (3) the extension of the previous framework for evaluation of CDAs with datasets and ground-truth catalogue for the Moon

Mercury's Internal Structure

We describe the current state of knowledge about Mercury's interior structure. We review the available observational constraints, including mass, size, density, gravity field, spin state, composition, and tidal response. These data enable the construction of models that represent the distribution of mass inside Mercury. In particular, we infer radial profiles of the pressure, density, and gravity in the core, mantle, and crust. We also examine Mercury's rotational dynamics and the influence of an inner core on the spin state and the determination of the moment of inertia. Finally, we discuss the wide-ranging implications of Mercury's internal structure on its thermal evolution, surface geology, capture in a unique spin-orbit resonance, and magnetic field generation.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures, in press, to appear in "Mercury - The View after MESSENGER", S. C. Solomon, B. J. Anderson, L. R. Nittler (editors), Cambridge University Pres

Estimation of crust and lithospheric properties for Mercury from high-resolution gravity and topography

We have analyzed the entire set of radiometric tracking data from the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission. This analysis employed a method where standard Doppler tracking data were transformed into line-of-sight accelerations. These accelerations have greater sensitivity to small-scale features than standard Doppler. We estimated a gravity model expressed in spherical harmonics to degree and order 180 and showed that this model is improved, as it has increased correlations with topography in areas where tracking data were collected when the spacecraft altitude was low. The new model was used in an analysis of the localized admittance between gravity and topography to determine properties of Mercury’s lithosphere. Four areas with high correlations between gravity and topography were selected. These areas represent different terrain types: the high-Mg region, the Strindberg crater plus some lobate scarps, heavily cratered terrain, and smooth plains. We employed a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to estimate crustal density, load density, crustal thickness, elastic thickness, load depth, and a load parameter that describes the ratio between surface and depth loading. We find densities around 2600 kg m−3 for three of the areas, with the density for the fourth area, the northern rise, being higher. The elastic thickness is generally low, between 11 and 30 km

Study of the Martian upper atmosphere using radio tracking data

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references.Since the first in situ observations of the Martian atmosphere were made by the twin Viking landers, we have learned considerably more about its composition, dynamics and variability. Not only did the new data on global atmospheric densities generate opportunities to understand the atmospheric composition of early Mars and supply constraints at the upper limit of General Circulation Models, it is critical for the design and planning of future exploration missions. We can complement the successes of remote sensing and accelerometer investigations by using radio tracking data that have not been studied from an atmospheric science perspective, or are available for the first time. Due to the very low density of the higher layers atmosphere, the estimation of the drag acceleration using Precision Orbit Determination is a challenge. We developed new numerical models of the non-conservative forces acting on the spacecraft. In particular, the spacecraft crosssectional area is calculated using improved spacecraft macro-models which include interplate shadowing. These improvements in the force modeling enable a more robust estimation of the atmospheric density. The density structure from the middle atmosphere up to the exosphere is studied using radio tracking data from the Mars Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Measurements in the Martian middle atmosphere, near 100 -- 110 km, are obtained from the aerobraking phase of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft; we obtain periapsis density estimates consistent with the Accelerometer Team, and estimate scale heights representative of the drag environment from an operational point of view. The orbit of Mars Odyssey during its mapping and extended phases allows us to probe very high in the exosphere, near 400 km altitude. In the retrieved density time series, we observe some of the features of solar forcing and seasonal cycle predicted by different atmospheric models.(cont.) The most recent radio tracking data, from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mapping mission, enables a monitoring of densities near 250 -- 300 km at higher temporal and spatial resolutions, allowing a more detailed study than previously possible.by Erwan Mazarico.Ph.D

Fast hierarchical low-rank view factor matrices for thermal irradiance on planetary surfaces

We present an algorithm for compressing the radiosity view factor model commonly used in radiation heat transfer and computer graphics. We use a format inspired by the hierarchical off-diagonal low rank format, where elements are recursively partitioned using a quadtree or octree and blocks are compressed using a sparse singular value decomposition -- the hierarchical matrix is assembled using dynamic programming. The motivating application is time-dependent thermal modeling on vast planetary surfaces, with a focus on permanently shadowed craters which receive energy through indirect irradiance. In this setting, shape models are comprised of a large number of triangular facets which conform to a rough surface. At each time step, a quadratic number of triangle-to-triangle scattered fluxes must be summed; that is, as the sun moves through the sky, we must solve the same view factor system of equations for a potentially unlimited number of time-varying righthand sides. We first conduct numerical experiments with a synthetic spherical cap-shaped crater, where the equilibrium temperature is analytically available. We also test our implementation with triangle meshes of planetary surfaces derived from digital elevation models recovered by orbiting spacecrafts. Our results indicate that the compressed view factor matrix can be assembled in quadratic time, which is comparable to the time it takes to assemble the full view matrix itself. Memory requirements during assembly are reduced by a large factor. Finally, for a range of compression tolerances, the size of the compressed view factor matrix and the speed of the resulting matrix vector product both scale linearly (as opposed to quadratically for the full matrix), resulting in orders of magnitude savings in processing time and memory space.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Lunar Topography: Results from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter

The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been operating nearly continuously since July 2009, accumulating over 6 billion measurements from more than 2 billion in-orbit laser shots. LRO's near-polar orbit results in very high data density in the immediate vicinity of the lunar poles, with full coverage at the equator from more than 12000 orbital tracks averaging less than 1 km in spacing at the equator. LRO has obtained a global geodetic model of the lunar topography with 50-meter horizontal and 1-m radial accuracy in a lunar center-of-mass coordinate system, with profiles of topography at 20-m horizontal resolution, and 0.1-m vertical precision. LOLA also provides measurements of reflectivity and surface roughness down to its 5-m laser spot size. With these data LOLA has measured the shape of all lunar craters 20 km and larger. In the proposed extended mission commencing late in 2012, LOLA will concentrate observations in the Southern Hemisphere, improving the density of the polar coverage to nearly 10-m pixel resolution and accuracy to better than 20 m total position error. Uses for these data include mission planning and targeting, illumination studies, geodetic control of images, as well as lunar geology and geophysics. Further improvements in geodetic accuracy are anticipated from the use of re ned gravity fields after the successful completion of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission in 2012