Characterization and calibration are vital for instrument commanding and image interpretation in remote sensing. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Narrow Angle Camera (LROC NAC) takes 500 Mpixel greyscale images of lunar scenes at 0.5 meters/pixel. It uses two nominally identical line scan cameras for a larger crosstrack field of view. Stray light, spatial crosstalk, and nonlinearity were characterized using flight images of the Earth and the lunar limb. These are important for imaging shadowed craters, studying ∼1 meter size objects, and photometry respectively. Background, nonlinearity, and flatfield corrections have been implemented in the calibration pipeline. An eight-column pattern in the background is corrected. The detector is linear for \(\mathrm{DN} = 600\mbox{--}2000\) but a signal-dependent additive correction is required and applied for \(\mathrm{DN}<600\). A predictive model of detector temperature and dark level was developed to command dark level offset. This avoids images with a cutoff at \(\mathrm{DN}=0\) and minimizes quantization error in companding. Absolute radiometric calibration is derived from comparison of NAC images with ground-based images taken with the Robotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO) at much lower spatial resolution but with the same photometric angles.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow Angle Cameras (NAC) and Wide Angle Camera (WAC) commenced data collection from lunar orbit on 30 June 2009. The two NACs are monochrome narrow-angle linescan imagers (0.5m/pixel) while WAC is a 7-color push-frame camera (100 and 400 m/pixel visible and UV, respectively). To date (May 2010) LROC has collected over 25 Terabytes of raw data while LRO orbited the Moon over 4000 times.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) are on the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The WAC is a 7-color push-frame camera (100 and 400 m/pixel visible and UV, respectively), while the two NACs are monochrome narrow-angle linescan imagers (0.5 m/pixel). The primary mission of LRO is to obtain measurements of the Moon that will enable future lunar human exploration. The overarching goals of the LROC investigation include landing site identification and certification, mapping of permanently polar shadowed and sunlit regions, meter-scale mapping of polar regions, global multispectral imaging, a global morphology base map, characterization of regolith properties, and determination of current impact hazards.

On May 25, 2008, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used its HiRISE camera to capture a dramatic image of the Phoenix Mars Lander descending on its parachute towards the surface of Mars. This was the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body. Capturing the image required months of planning and testing across many disciplines of the MRO operations team. This paper presents the navigational changes to the MRO orbit to support the Phoenix entry geometry, the GN&C maneuvers necessary to track Phoenix during its entry and descent, the statistical analysis to determine the likelihood of capturing the image, and the HiRISE imaging preparation and post processing to bring out the details of the Lander, parachute and back-shell.

The objectives of this paper are twofold: first, to report our estimates of the meter‐to‐decameter‐scale topography and slopes of candidate landing sites for the Phoenix mission, based on analysis of Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images with a typical pixel scale of 3 m and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) images at 0.3 m pixel−1 and, second, to document in detail the geometric calibration, software, and procedures on which the photogrammetric analysis of HiRISE data is based. A combination of optical design modeling, laboratory observations, star images, and Mars images form the basis for software in the U.S. Geological Survey Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers (ISIS) 3 system that corrects the images for a variety of distortions with single‐pixel or subpixel accuracy. Corrected images are analyzed in the commercial photogrammetric software SOCET SET (® BAE Systems), yielding digital topographic models (DTMs) with a grid spacing of 1 m (3–4 pixels) that require minimal interactive editing. Photoclinometry yields DTMs with single‐pixel grid spacing. Slopes from MOC and HiRISE are comparable throughout the latitude zone of interest and compare favorably with those where past missions have landed successfully; only the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) B site in Meridiani Planum is smoother. MOC results at multiple locations have root‐mean‐square (RMS) bidirectional slopes of 0.8–4.5° at baselines of 3–10 m. HiRISE stereopairs (one per final candidate site and one in the former site) yield 1.8–2.8° slopes at 1‐m baseline. Slopes at 1 m from photoclinometry are also in the range 2–3° after correction for image blur. Slopes exceeding the 16° Phoenix safety limit are extremely rare.

Water has supposedly marked the surface of Mars and produced characteristic landforms. To understand the history of water on Mars, we take a close look at key locations with the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, reaching fine spatial scales of 25 to 32 centimeters per pixel. Boulders ranging up to ∼2 meters in diameter are ubiquitous in the middle to high latitudes, which include deposits previously interpreted as finegrained ocean sediments or dusty snow. Bright gully deposits identify six locations with very recent activity, but these lie on steep (20° to 35°) slopes where dry mass wasting could occur. Thus, we cannot confirm the reality of ancient oceans or water in active gullies but do see evidence of fluvial modification of geologically recent mid-latitude gullies and equatorial impact craters.

Introduction: The relatively crystalline and un-weathered regolith exposed at young impact craters in the lunar maria exhibit diagnostic visible to near-infrared reflectance properties related to their mineralogy [e.g. 1, 2]. As a result, spectral measurements of small mare craters provide an opportunity to directly investigate the mineralogy of emplaced basalts, while circumventing many of the complications associated with the space weathering and non-mare contamination of mature lunar soils. The reflectance properties of small craters representing the least weathered and un-contaminated surfaces in the lunar maria are examined using high spatial resolution data from the Clementine UVVIS and NIR cameras. This study extends previous analyses of mare crater spectra from several deposits on the near side of the Moon [3] in order to examine the global distribution and diversity of lunar volcanism.