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Updated: May 14, 2026

Simulating Imaging of Large Scale Radio Arrays on the Lunar Surface
Published on: July 30, 2020
Free space laser communication experiments from Earth to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in lunar orbit
Xiaoli Sun1, David R Skillman, Evan D Hoffman
1NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 694/599/567/554/698, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA. xiaoli.sun-1@nasa.gov
Abstract:
Laser communication and ranging experiments were successfully conducted from the satellite laser ranging (SLR) station at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) in lunar orbit. The experiments used 4096-ary pulse position modulation (PPM) for the laser pulses during one-way LRO Laser Ranging (LR) operations. Reed-Solomon forward error correction codes were used to correct the PPM symbol errors due to atmosphere turbulence and pointing jitter. The signal fading was measured and the results were compared to the model.
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