SPACETRC / SPICE · LRO · 2018
Explore a mission through its geometry.
An excerpt calculated from the real archived LRO trajectory around the Moon. Change the viewpoint and examine range, spherical-reference altitude and light time with their units.
A six-hour excerpt sampled every minute from archived kernels, not live telemetry. No propagation between samples. Altitude is relative to a mean-radius sphere, not terrain or a geoid. The local view uses geometric Moon-centred positions; Earth range and light time use LT+S reception geometry. Instrument pointing and surface targets are not calculated. Not a flight-operations or navigation-validation product.
Data is not loaded. Starting reads a file from this site; it does not connect to an external mission service.
Time and viewpoint
These two angles describe the camera, not spacecraft attitude or latitude/longitude.
- Geometric range from Moon centre
- — km
- Altitude above mean-radius sphere
- — km
- Apparent range from Earth · LT+S
- — km
- Light time to an Earth receiver
- — s
The Moon is a mean-radius sphere. The track joins archived samples. The Earth line indicates direction only; Earth distance does not fit this local scale.
What is calculated?
Geometric position
r = √(x² + y² + z²)
Norm of the Moon-centred J2000 vector. Local geometry has no light-time correction.
Spherical-reference altitude
h = r − R
R is the mean of the Moon radii in the PCK kernel. No terrain model is used.
Reception geometry
LT+S · 299792.458 km/s
SPICE computes one-way light time and stellar-aberration corrections for reception at Earth.
Reproduce the calculation
SpiceyPy 8.3.0 · CSPICE_N0067 · 361 samples · 2026-10-24
SHA-256 843ad6a5649000a6d1bf045d69b0fb450d8bbadb3fb5102875da2cd49376356f
- NAIF SPICE concept ↗
- NAIF use rules and attribution ↗
- LRO reconstructed trajectory label ↗
- JPL SSD API policy ↗
Kernel identities and integrity
naif0012.tls
SHA-256 678e32bdb5a744117a467cd9601cd6b373f0e9bc9bbde1371d5eee39600a039b
de421.bsp
SHA-256 7b69803b2001ad4790f819f988e1df877e81ad3373b1f2d1def98b58891424fe
lrorg_2018074_2018166_v01.bsp
SHA-256 af15f2545b42b5fc3fca9f710cdd13f1b5933eaf7666b412a3b534bc3e40c816
pck00011.tpc
SHA-256 3dff7b1dbeceaa01f25467767d3fa25816051c85d162d1edf04acb310ee28bb1
Geometry computed with NASA/JPL NAIF SPICE and archived LRO reconstructed SPK; SpaceTRC presentation and calculations. No institutional endorsement is implied.