The Processing and Analysis of Lunar Penetrating Radar Channel-1 Data from Chang’E-3

Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR), which is one of the most important science payloads onboard the Chang’E-3 (CE-3) rover, is used to obtain electromagnetic image less than 100 m beneath the lunar surface. This paper describes the system composition and working mechanism of the LPR and presents a detailed analysis of its data. We investigated special signal-processing methods and present the result of channel-1 data. The result shows that the effective echo occurs at depths greater than 100 m. Moreover, an unusual reflection exists at depth of 40 m, which may be the boundary of two geological units beneath the lunar surface.

[1]  G. Schaber.  Lava Flows in Mare Imbrium: Geologic Evaluation from Apollo Orbital Photography , 1973 .

[2]  D. Ming.  Lunar sourcebook. A user's guide to the moon , 1992 .

[3]  Long Xiao,et al.  Geologic characteristics of the Chang’E-3 exploration region , 2014 .

[4]  Yan Su,et al.  Data processing and initial results of Chang'e-3 lunar penetrating radar , 2014 .

[5]  Guangyou Fang,et al.  Lunar Penetrating Radar onboard the Chang'e-3 mission , 2014 .

[6]  Yasushi Yamaguchi,et al.  The Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS) Onboard the KAGUYA (SELENE) Spacecraft , 2010 .

[7]  R. Jaumann,et al.  Lunar mare basalt flow units: Thicknesses determined from crater size‐frequency distributions , 2002 .

[8]  J. Guest,et al.  Compositional and temporal investigation of exposed lunar basalts in the Mare Imbrium region , 2008 .

[9]  William J. Marinelli,et al.  The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) Technology Demonstration , 2010 .

[10]  Shuanggen Jin,et al.  New results and questions of lunar exploration from SELENE, Chang’E-1, Chandrayaan-1 and LRO/LCROSS , 2013 .

[11]  S. Dai,et al.  Lunar regolith structure model and echo simulation for Lunar Penetrating Radar , 2014, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar.

[12]  郑磊,et al.  Performance evaluation of lunar penetrating radar onboard the rover of CE-3 probe based on results from ground experiments , 2014 .

[13]  Bradley J. Thomson,et al.  Evidence for water ice on the Moon: Results for anomalous polar craters from the LRO Mini‐RF imaging radar , 2013 .

[14]  Ralf Jaumann,et al.  Ages of Mare Basalts on the Lunar Nearside: A Synthesis , 2000 .