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   “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission” will be the subject of a talk by Brent Archinal. The LRO Mission is NASA’s first return to the Moon since the early 1990’s and the first full scale NASA mission to the Moon since the Apollo era in the early 1970’s. The goal of LRO is to collect data that can be used to map landing sites of interest, look for mineral resources and possibly resolve the question of whether water exists in the permanently shadowed areas of the Moon. LRO was launched on June 18 from Kennedy Space Center and has been in a 30 x 199 km “commissioning phase” orbit as the various on-board instruments are checked out and begin collecting data. It is currently planned that on September 18 – the day that Hidden Hollow ’09 begins! – LRO will have been moved to its 50 km circular nominal orbit and its primary one year mission will begin. Brent will present information on LRO, the goals of the mission, the various LRO instruments, initial results, and longer term plans for LRO and processing the data it will collect – more than all other lunar and planetary missions combined! Brent is no stranger to Hidden Hollow. He is an Ohio native and a long time member of the Richland Astronomical Society. While attending Ohio State during the 1970's and early '80's, his interest in observational and amateur astronomy grew. He has been a member of and served various astronomy clubs, including as President, of the OSU Astronomy Club and the Columbus Astronomical Society, and he is currently a member of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, and the Coconino Astronomical Society. He has long advocated that visual observers “push the envelope” of what is thought possible. After becoming one of the first to publicize the “Messier Marathon” during the early 1980’s, in 2001 at the All Arizona Messier Marathon he become the first person to observe all 110 Messier objects in a single night using binoculars. He made the first documented (and second known) naked eye observation of M 81 in 1995, the farthest object visible to the unaided human eye. In 1987, along with Bob Bunge, and using the 31-inch Rupp reflector, he made the first known visual telescopic observation of a gravitational lens, the double quasar in Ursa Major. He has also long been interested and involved in the proper identification of deep sky objects, particularly star clusters. An outgrowth of this work was the publication of the Webb Society Monograph No. 1, “The Non-existent Star Clusters of the RNGC” in 1993, and with co-author Steven Hynes, publication by Willmann-Bell, Inc., of the book “Star Clusters” in 2003. In recognition of this research, in 2000 the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid no. 11941 “Archinal”. Professionally, Brent received his PhD from the Ohio State Department of Geodetic Science and Surveying in 1987. For 13 years he was employed as an Astronomer at the U. S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D. C. His work there centered on performing research into methods for more accurately determining the Earth's orientation and improving the coordinate systems of the Earth and sky. Since 2000 Brent has been working as a Geodesist with the Astrogeology Science Center of the U. S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, AZ. His research centers on generally improving the coordinate systems for the other bodies of the solar system so that they can be accurately mapped. Currently he is a Participating Scientist on the LRO mission, and a member of the LROC Camera Team. He chairs the NASA Lunar Geodesy and Cartography Working Group that sets standards for lunar mapping, leads the USGS lunar mapping effort, and is the Chair of the IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates, which defines the coordinate systems for all solar system bodies.  |
