Crossover analysis of Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter data

Abstract

In its first 15 months of continuous operation, the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument aboard Mars Global Surveyor ranged to Mars over 330 million times, generating more than 5000 orbital profiles, with a ranging precision of 0.4 m over smooth terrain. The accuracy of the profiles depends on knowledge of the spacecraft position, orientation, and observation time, which are subject to errors. We model these errors via the analysis of over 24 million altimetric crossovers. A quasiperiodic, once per revolution adjustment of the ground tracks as a function of time in three locally orthogonal directions minimizes the altimetric residuals via least‐squares. Using a sparse matrix technique, computational effort scales linearly with the number of crossovers and only marginally with the number of parameters. Orbital errors mainly result from poor modeling of spacecraft thrusting events in the absence of tracking. Seasonal effects, likely due to changing thermal environment, as well as residual miscalibrations, are evident in the pointing solutions. Incorporating multiple parameters per revolution significantly improves crossover residuals, and resolves pointing aberrations during orbital transitions from night to day. Altimetry from the adjusted tracks generates a topographic model whose accuracy is typically better than 1 m vertically with respect to the center of mass of Mars. The centroid position of each MOLA shot is typically accurate to ∼100 m horizontally. Terrain models from accurately located lidar data can be gradient‐shaded to illuminate geological structures with 1 in 1000 slopes that are invisible to cameras. Temporal changes in elevation (e.g., frost deposition/ablation) at decimeter levels may also be assessed using crossovers, but results must be interpreted with caution due to uncertainties in range walk correction.