Radio Science Experiments in Russian “Luna-Recourse”“Luna-Glob”Projects

Abstract

These years, the Russia Space Agency is planning a couple of new lunar orbiting and landing explorations, the Luna-Resource and Luna-Glob Projects. Three kinds of radio scientific payloads will be installed on them: two radio beacons, installed on Luna-Resource and Luna-Glob Landers separately, and a Ka-band receiver installed on Luna-Glob orbiter. The beacons will irradiate signals at two radio frequency bands of 8.4 GHz and 32 GHz. The 8.4 GHz signals will be transmitted to the Earth, where the VLBI ground based network will be used for celestial mechanics experiments and as a navigation tool. It will be possible to measure the beacon’s positions with accuracy about 1 cm and to register Moon’s libration. The 32 GHz band will be used as a kind of orbiter navigation tool and for lunar gravity field investigation. The Ka band signal will be directed to local zenith and will be received by orbiter’s receiver. Investigation of Non-uniformity of lunar gravity field (experiment INGL) will be performed in vicinity of landing regions with accuracy 3-5 mGal. The spatial resolution will be about 20 km. The experiment is based on precise Doppler shift measurement.

Keywords

space research / radio science / coherent transponder / same beam experiment