Joe wrote;
Kurt, Thanks for this great info. I'm wondering, with 1 m. resolution, whether any of the Apollo sites will show up. Best wishes, Joe
One of the more interesting LRO factoids from Tuesday's NASA pre-mission science broadcast is that the LRO visual camera and antenna mast can take pictures and broadcast at 1.3 Ghz. The camera actually has a 50cm resolution and the LRO can broadcast those high resolution images back to Earth in a near-real time rate. The problem is there are no deep space system receivers on Earth that are capable of accepting LROs broadband signal at its high-capacity transmittal rate. As a result, high-resolution images have to be taken, stored on broad the spacecraft in storage limited on broad memory and transmitted back to Earth over time at a lower rate. This limits 99% of LROs work to using the lower 1 meter resolution software setting. High resolution 50 cm imaging is reserved for a few percent of LROs camera time and is limited to high-priority future landing and high-science interest sites. There also will be an LRO public website for the general public to propose high-resolution camera targets. LRO LCROSS Mission science broadcast at min 28:45 and 13:45 and 32:20 http://www.youtube.com/profile?v=4Y9GRFdercM&user=NASAtelevision LRO mission fact sheet http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/359938main_LRO_factsheet.pdf Clear Skies - Kurt