Better Lunar Ranges with Fewer Photons - Resolving the Lunar Retro-reflectors

Abstract

Because of lunar librations, the retroreflectors left on the moon do not, in general, face directly at the Earth. Usually this is regarded as a disadvantage. It results in a spread of arrival times, because each cube that comprises the retroreflector is at a slightly different distance from the earth. However, we can turn this same effect into an advantage. Using pulses and detectors somewhat faster than those currently used for lunar ranging, we can resolve at least some of the structure of a retroreflector, at least when the libration angles are large. This additional structure in the transfer function means that a unique mm level fit can be obtained with many fewer photons. Fitting to the expected reflector transfer function in general requires fewer photons than straight averaging, and smoothly reduces to averaging in the cases where no structure can be resolved. The gains from resolving the reflectors are largest at large libration angles, exactly the case where averaging is most inefficient. In these cases the number of photons needed can be reduced by an order of magnitude or more. Analysis shows that angles for which the gain is very high happen several times each month, with the details depending on the exact librations. Experimental validation of this technique should be possible with existing SLR stations and mockups of the lunar reflectors.