Research On The Recovery Of The Lunar Nearside Gravity Anomaly From Line-of-sight Acceleration

As one of the moon's main physical features, lunar gravitational field plays a very predominant role in the study of the moon. The knowledge of the lunar gravitational field is the precondition of the lunar satellite orbit's designment and precise determination, and it is the base of the foundation of the lunar geodetic reference frame. In addition, the accurate lunar gravitational field is the essential information of studying the lunar internal structure, the evolution history and the exploitation of moon's resource as well.In this thesis, the past lunar exploration missions are described in detail, and the methods of determining the lunar gravitational field are analyzed in particular. Then the direct method is selected as the main research object, which processes the line-of-sight acceleration data from the Lunar Prospector extended mission using multiple step least square fitting method. Finally, the gravity anomaly of the nearside is obtained, and is compared with the latest lunar gravitational model LP165. It showsthat the standard deviation in the domain -75° ~ 75° is ±27.354 mgal, and75° ~ 85°,-85° —75° is ±61.965 mgal, which verifies the feasibility and reliability of this method.