Francis Ridge
We are just beginning to get images from the European Space Agency's
(ESA) SMART-1 Spacecraft now orbiting the Moon. Dr. David Darling of ALPO
mentioned on Nov. 16, 2004 that the SMART-1 spacecraft would investigate
LTP. This mission will be followed by two others: Chandrayaan-1 and Trailblazer.
The most ambitious mission will, of course, be TrailBlazer. The orbit is
expected to be at around 100 km (62 miles). Rather than
a few orbits, decaying to a crash after only a short mission,
Trailblazer is expected to orbit for at least 30 days,
with extended mission status to several months depending
on spacecraft condition. We are not only looking at live
televison, but HD (High-Definition) live imaging, which will
allow TransOrbital to map the Moon like never before.
I am now assured that this will not involve a W-E decaying
orbit, which would have made targeting much more difficult for
our needs, but a lowering polar orbit taking in all of the Moon and
allowing us to look at many other LTP areas in the process.
Web sites and data sheets on all three lunar missions are listed and linked
below.
The Lunascan Project is still working on setting up an
EBTI team to get the best Earth-based telescopic
images of the Moon, in particular, the area of the Blair
Cuspids. This will include the area to the NE including
Arago C and some other areas. See target list below. I have contacted
several people who have volunteered. The latest is John Sussenbach
(Tycho) in Switzerland. I am still trying
to locate Alfredo Zanussi who made these images of
Nonius and
it is very difficult telling a difference between his awesome image of Nonius
and the lunar orbiter image. Only the framelets from LO give it away.
I am also trying to get a few more appropriate anomaly
specialists on our Lunascan Project Imaging Team, which
will deal with all types of imaging, both ground and orbital. At
the outset we have Lan Fleming & Mike Lomax of VGL, plus Dr. Mark Carlotto.
These three gentlemen have worked on the Blair Cuspids in the past. Rafael
Lena's team in Italy, the
Geologic Lunar Research
Group, is onboard, also. Alexey Arkhipov, who has
also supported The Lunascan Project in the past, has also joined
the team and three of his papers are listed at the bottom of this page.
Francis Ridge
Coordinator,
The Lunascan Project
