The laser ranging experiment of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Five years of operations and data analysis

Abstract We describe the results of the Laser Ranging (LR) experiment carried out from June 2009 to September 2014 in order to make one-way time-of-flight measurements of laser pulses between Earth-based laser ranging stations and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) orbiting the Moon. Over 4,000 h of successful LR data are obtained from 10 international ground stations. The 20–30 cm precision of the full-rate LR data is further improved to 5–10 cm after conversion into normal points. The main purpose of LR is to utilize the high accuracy normal point data to improve the quality of the LRO orbits, which are nominally determined by the radiometric S-band tracking data. When independently used in the LRO precision orbit determination process with the high-resolution GRAIL gravity model, LR data provide good orbit solutions, with an average difference of ∼50 m in total position, and ∼20 cm in radial direction, compared to the definitive LRO trajectory. When used in combination with the S-band tracking data, LR data help to improve the orbit accuracy in the radial direction to ∼15 cm. In order to obtain highly accurate LR range measurements for precise orbit determination results, it is critical to closely model the behavior of the clocks both at the ground stations and on the spacecraft. LR provides a unique data set to calibrate the spacecraft clock. The LRO spacecraft clock is characterized by the LR data to a timing knowledge of 0.015 ms over the entire 5 years of LR operation. We here present both the engineering setup of the LR experiments and the detailed analysis results of the LR data.