Cold Regions Lab Helps NASA Put “The Moon” Within Reach

Published June 9, 2011

June 9, 2011

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Hanover, N.H. — The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), along with many participating organizations such as ERDC’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), has created a new interactive Web-based tool, Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP) that incorporates observations from past and current lunar missions creating one of the most comprehensive lunar research Web sites to date.

CRREL researchers participated in this collaborative development effort provided assistance to the LMMP at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., where they created an online viewer, Lunar Mapper, which will allow anyone with access to a computer to search through and view a vast number of lunar images and other digital products. The data and tools available through the project Web site will allow researchers to perform in-depth analyses to support mission planning and system design for lunar exploration and science missions. It will permit detailed scientific analysis and discovery and open additional educational and outreach opportunities.

According to a recent NASA news release, the LMMP Web site, www.lmmp.nasa.gov, is a one-stop location for data about the moon, including the most recent lunar surface imagery, altimetry, temperature, lighting and other data, as provided by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and its seven onboard instruments.

“By making this data widely available to the general public, NASA seeks to provide engineers, scientists, mission planners, educators and students with a new resource that will allow them to view and analyze a wide array of lunar image products and other data in a way not previously available to such a diverse group,” said Raymond French, integration lead for the LMMP Office at Marshall.

The project is managed at the Marshall Center and is a collaborative development effort across NASA and other organizations, including NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, CA; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA; the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, AZ; ERDC-CRREL in Hanover, NH; Arizona State University in Tempe AZ; and the University of Arizona in Tucson AZ.