APOLLO Documentation
APOLLO Project Documents
- Layout of Components at APO,
Schematic of equipment positions relative to telescope (1 page)
- APO Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Murphy et
al., March 10, 2003: Mechanical, thermal, electrical issues associated
with mounting the laser on the telescope (and auxilliary equipment
nearby). (27 pages)
- APO Critical Design Review (CDR), Murphy et
al., May 2003: Mechanical, thermal, and plumbing details treated in the CDR
at a more detailed level than what appeared in the PDR document. (25
pages)
- APOLLO System Manual, August 2005:
Systems manual describing APOLLO components (laser, clock, timing system,
ACM, etc.). (53 pages)
- ACM Command Reference, November 2010:
Description, inputs, outputs, NAF commands. (6 pages)
- Housctl Manual, updated periodically;
Eric Michelsen's manual describing the operation and design of the main
data acquisition and environmental software package that runs on houston.
(58 pages as of 9/08/06)
- Apollo System Notes, updated periodically;
Eric Michelsen's collection of notes on the APOLLO system (22 pages as of 9/08/06)
- Sequence of Events, Murphy,
May 8, 2002: Sequence of APOLLO timing events (1 page)
- APOLLO Timing Scheme I, Murphy,
February 5, 2002: Timing/Control Scheme for APOLLO (2 pages)
- APOLLO Timing Sheme II, Murphy,
May (?) 2002: Fleshed-out timing scheme and original ACM design (4 pages)
- APOLLO CPU Tasks, Murphy,
2002: What we ask of houston: control computer demands (1 page)
- Role and Performance of Diffuser, Laura Tom,
Sept., 2004: Analysis of the diffuser properties and its impact on the
APOLLO fiducial measurement (17 pages)
- Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m coordinates,
August, 2005: Our best knowledge of where the telescope sits. (2 pages)
- APOLLO focal plane orientations, August,
2005: Mathematical development of APOLLO field rotations. Relative orientations
of CCD, APD, periscope views, and the sky. (6 pages)
- Lunar Gate Positioning, August, 2005:
Detailed prescription for how to place the lunar gate precisely where we
want it, and how to predict the resulting TDC value on a gate-by-gate
basis. (3 pages)
- Lunar Prediction Procedure, August 2005:
A description of the iterative procedure used to perform the lunar
prediction calculations. (4 pages)
- Perturbations to the Lunar Orbit, January 2006:
Analysis of perturbation influences on the lunar orbit, including the
solar tidal perturbation, gravitomagnetism, and general solar-directed
perturbations as case examples. (5 pages)
- APOLLO: Meeting the Millimeter Goal, Murphy
et al., Jan., 2005: paper for the 14th International Workshop
on Laser Ranging describing the avalanche walk, diffuser solution, and
thermal challenges to the differential scheme. (10 pages)
- Early Definition of APOLLO, Murphy,
June 29, 2000: Initial calculations relating to APOLLO (24 pages)
- Statistics of Photon Arrival Time, Murphy,
2001: discusses first-photon bias
- Velocity Aberration of Lunar Return, Murphy,
2001: discusses point-ahead problem and pattern for APO
- Tidal Effects on Earth's Surface, Murphy,
2001: flounders over subject of tidal displacement at earth's surface
- Data Reduction Outline, April 18, 2006:
Initial outline of the tasks to be accomplished by APOLLO reduction
Other APOLLO Members' Documentation Links
James Battat's
Document Page: Observing Manual; RTDs; flowmeters; Marx Bank;
loads more (over 30 documents).
Eric Michelsen's Home Page:
APOLLO System Notes; Housctl Manual; Laser Communications; Coding Guidelines.
Adam Orin's Documents: Environmental
monitoring; APOLLO timing; Power supplies and pinouts; diffuser logic; APD
operation and crosstalk; Video streaming
Introduction to Lunar Laser Ranging
- How High the Moon, Derral Mulholland,
Sky & Telescope article, popular level (6 pages)
- The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment, Bender et al.,
Science, 1973: Old-school paper on the first lunar ranging station: good because it describes a lot of the basics of the measurement, and the devices on the moon, etc. (10 pages)
- Lunar Laser Ranging: A Continuing Legacy of the Apollo Program, Dickey et al.,
Science, 1994: More recent description of lunar ranging: how it works and what science is derived from it. (9 pages)
- Testing Relativity: 20 Years of Progress, Clifford Will,
Sky & Telescope, Oct. 1983: Overview of modern tests of GR at popular level. (6 pages)
- Millimetric Lunar Laser Ranging at OCA, Samain et al.,
Astronomy & Astrophysics Supplement Series, June 1998: A description of the French LLR system including a thorough discussion of systematic errors. (10 pages)
Lunar Ranging Science
- General Relativity at 75: How Right was Einstein>, Clifford Will,
Science, November 1990: Moderately rigorous account of the various modern tests of GR and resulting constraints. (7 pages)
- Relativity Parameters Determined from Lunar Laser Ranging, Jim Williams et al.,
Physics Review D, June 1996: The best reference describing the LLR tests of GR, and the model that is used to extract this information out of the range series. (10 pages)
- Long-range Tests of the Equivalence Principle, Anderson and Williams,
Classical and Quantum Gravity, 2001: Most recent published results on the LLR EP test. (10 pages)
- Lunar Laser Ranging and the Equivalence Principle Signal, Muller and Nordtvedt,
Physical Review D, 1998: Independent (non-JPL) model for LLR reaching similar levels of precision. Lots of checks for potential aliases and biases. (13 pages)
- Testing the Equivalence Principle: Why and How?,Thibault Damour,
Classical and Quantum Gravity, 1996: Theoretical motivations for pushing on equivalence principle tests. More general than LLR itself. (9 pages)
- Equivalence Principle and the Moon, Damour & Vokrouhlicky,
Physical Review D, 1996: Specific motivations for using LLR to test the EP. Lots of lunar theory and also theoretical significance. (25 pages)
Laser Ranging Reflector Papers
- Arthur D. Little Final Report on Apollo 11 reflector
design and testing
- Apollo 11 Reflector post-mission
report by C. O. Alley et al.
- Apollo 14 Reflector post-mission
report by J. E. Faller et al.
- Apollo 15 Reflector post-mission
report by J. E. Faller et al.
APD papers
- Geiger-Mode Avalanche Diodes for Three-Dimensional Imaging, Aull et al., Lincoln Laboratories Journal, 2002: Great article about the APD array devices used in APOLLO. (16 pages)
- Photon counting techniques with silicon avalanche diodes, Dautet at al.,
Applied Optics, July 1993: Good overview of what various types of silicon APDs are capable of in terms of sensitivity and timing performance. (7 pages)
- Avalanche photodiodes and quenching circuits for single-photon detection, Cova et al.,
Applied Optics, April 1996: Great overview of quencing techniques and performance and electrical model of APDs. (21 pages)
- Performance optimization of active quenching circuits for picosecond timing with single-photon avalanche diodes, Lacaita et al.,
Review of Scientific Instrum., August 1995: Paper describing differential scheme for reporting APD avalanche with few-picosecond precision. This is the scheme we use for APOLLO. (7 pages)
- Three-Dimensional Imaging Laser Radars with Geiger-Mode Avalanche Photodiode Arrays, Marino et al., Lincoln Laboratories Journal, 2002: Applications of the APD arrays. (20 pages)
- 20-ps timing resolution with single-photon avalanche diodes, Cova et al.,
Review of Scientific Instrum., June 1989: Fast timing with APDs, describing, for instance, the pulse shape from APDs. (7 pages)
Atmosphere papers
- Correction of Laser Range Tracking Data for
Atmospheric Refraction at Elevations above 10 degrees, Marini &
Murray, NASA document: X-591-73-351, November 1973: Original
tropospheric delay model still used today. (36 pages)
- Atmospheric Refractivity Corrections in
Satellite Laser Ranging, Abshire & Gardner,
IEEE Trans. on Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
July 1985: Examination of the influence of gradients. (12 pages)
- Correction of Satellite Tracking Data for an
Arbitrary Tropospheric Profile, Marini,
Radio Science, February 1972: Early model for radio delay. (9 pages)
- Contributions to the Theory of Atmospheric
Refraction, Part I, Saastamoinen,
Bulletin Geodesique, September 1972: Basic Theory. (12 pages)
- Introduction to Practical Computation of
Astronomical
Refraction, Saastamoinen,
Bulletin Geodesique, December 1972: Addresses non-equilibrium
conditions. (8 pages)
- Contributions to the Theory of Atmospheric
Refraction, Part II, Saastamoinen,
Bulletin Geodesique, March 1973: Application to Satellite Ranging. (12 pages)
APOLLO main page.