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High-resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) of the lunar surface can provide crucial spatial information for lunar exploration missions. In this paper, we propose a method to generate high-quality DTMs based on a synthesis of deep learning and Shape from Shading (SFS) with a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera (LROC NAC) image as well as a coarse-resolution DTM as input. Specifically, we use a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based deep learning architecture to predict initial pixel-resolution DTMs. Then, we use SFS to improve the details of DTMs. The CNN-model is trained based on the dataset with 30, 000 samples, which are formed by stereo-photogrammetry derived DTMs and orthoimages using LROC NAC images as well as the Selenological and Engineering Explorer and LRO Elevation Model (SLDEM). We take Chang’E-3 landing site as an example, and use a 1.6 m resolution LROC NAC image and 5 m resolution stereo-photogrammetry derived DTM as input to test the proposed method. We evaluate our DTMs with those from stereo-photogrammetry and deep learning. The result shows the proposed method can generate 1.6 m resolution high-quality DTMs, which can clearly improve the visibility of details of the initial DTM generated from the deep learning method.

A model of the interaction of small meteoroid bodies with the Earth’s atmosphere, using the saturated vapor pressure of the meteoroid, was applied to analyze the light curves of meteors, making it possible to estimate the parameters of meteoroids. An automated method for estimating meteoroid body parameters was developed. The effect of uncertainty in the dependence of the saturated vapor pressure on the meteoroid body parameters is analyzed, the limitations and features of the model are discussed. Модель взаимодействия мелких метеорных тел с атмосферой Земли, использующая давление насыщенного пара вещества метеороида, была использована для анализа кривых блеска метеоров, что позволило оценить параметры метеороидов. Был разработан автоматизированный метод оценки параметров метеорного тела. Проанализировано влияние неопределенности в зависимости давления насыщенного пара от температуры на параметры метеорного тела, обсуждаются ограничения и особенности модели.

The Moon is an archetypal atmosphere-less celestial body in the Solar System. For such bodies, 38 the environments are characterized by complex interaction among the space plasma, tenuous 39 neutral gas, dust and the outermost layer of the surface. Here we propose the SELMA mission 40 (Surface, Environment, and Lunar Magnetic Anomalies) to study how airless bodies interact with 41 space environment. SELMA uses a unique combination of remote sensing via ultraviolet and 42 infrared wavelengths, and energetic neutral atom imaging, as well as in situ measurements of 43 exospheric gas, plasma, and dust at the Moon. After observations in a lunar orbit for one year, 44 SELMA will conduct an impact experiment to investigate volatile content in the soil of the 45 permanently shadowed area of the Shackleton crater. SELMA also carries an impact probe to 46 sound the Reiner-Gamma mini-magnetosphere and its interaction with the lunar regolith from the 47 SELMA orbit down to the surface. SELMA was proposed to the European Space Agency as a 48 medium-class mission (M5) in October 2016. Research on the SELMA scientific themes is of 49 importance for fundamental planetary sciences and for our general understanding of how the 50 Solar System works. In addition, SELMA outcomes will contribute to future lunar explorations 51 through qualitative characterization of the lunar environment and, in particular, investigation of 52 the presence of water in the lunar soil, as a valuable resource to harvest from the lunar regolith.

The presentation summarizes INPPS (International Nuclear Power and Propulsion System) flagship non-human (2020th) and human (2030th) Mars exploration missions. The 2020th first flagship space flight is the complex, complete test mission for the second flagship towards Mars with humans (2030th). The most efficient approach is the completely tested first INPPS in the 2020th as the preparation of the second flagship with humans on board. The second INPPS (2030th) is also the regular space transportation tug Mars-Earth. International requests for human Mars space flight is realizable by rationales for pursuing two INPPS Mars missions in the proposed period: 1) successful finalization of the European-Russian DEMOCRITOS and MEGAHIT projects with their three concepts of space, ground and nuclear demonstrators for INPPS realization (2017), 2) successful ground based test of the Russian nuclear reactor with 1MWel plus the important thermal emission solution by droplet radiators (2018), 3) reactor space qualification by Russia until 2025 and 4) the perfect celestial Earth-Mars-Earth-Jupiter/Europa trajectory in 2026-2031 to carryout maximal INPPS space flight tests. Set of issues of INPPS space system and all subsystems became identified and studied during DEMOCRITOS. Consequently critical performance will be studied by parallel realizations of the ground and nuclear demonstrators (until 2025). The INPPS space demonstrator considers directly results of ground and nuclear demonstrator tests. Realization of the space demonstrator in form of the first space qualification of INPPS with all subsystems in the middle of the 2020th plus INPPS tests for about one to two years - first in high Earth orbit and later in nearby Earth space environment means a complete concepts driven approval for all INPPS technologies for non-human/human INPPS-Mars missions. Space subsystem results of MARS-INPPS design (with arrow wing shaped radiators) will be described. In dependence - from a cluster with worldwide selected electric thrusters - the MARS-INPPS payload mass is up to 18 tons. This very high payload mass allows to transport three different payloads at once - scientific, pure commercial and new media communication. The realization including tests is sketched: especially the need of non-human flagship Mars flight, the test towards Europa (including real time radiation monitoring) for maximal human Mars mission preparation for the second INPPS with humans to Mars. INPPS missions implicate Apollo and ISS comparable outcomes for science technologies, international dedication and in addition for space commercialization. Insofar - this MARS-INPPS presentation - convince high attendance of conference participants, commercial and new media investors.

We study the thermal conditions in the polar areas of the irregularly shaped Martian moon Phobos. As was previously discussed, we consider direct illumi- nation by the Sun, eclipses by Mars, Mars shine, and single scattering of solar light by other surface areas of Phobos.

We evaluate the gravity equilibrium forms of the irregular-shaped Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos. We derive their normal ellipsoids and propose the el- lipsoidal height system to characterize the surface to- pography. We study the height distributions on Pho- bos and Deimos and compare their statistics with those of nearly spherical terrestrial planets. We identify a new criterion for determining surface equilibrium of the Martian moons and discuss its generality to other small bodies.

We propose the co-registration of laser profiles to high resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) as an approach for retrieving surface elevation changes at the poles of Mars. The edge of this method is validated using reprocessed and simulated Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) profiles. The ultimate goal is to apply this method to MOLA and HRSC DTMs to generate seasonal and long-term elevation change time series at the Martian poles with high spatial and temporal resolution.

The goal of Project GAUSS is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible ocean world candidate and the largest reservoir of water in the inner solar system. It shows active cryovolcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history that resulted in minerals not found in any other planets to date except for Earth's upper crust. The possible occurrence of recent subsurface ocean on Ceres and the complex geochemistry suggest possible past habitability and even the potential for ongoing habitability. Aiming to answer a broad spectrum of questions about the origin and evolution of Ceres and its potential habitability, GAUSS will return samples from this possible ocean world for the first time. The project will address the following top-level scientific questions: 1) What is the origin of Ceres and the origin and transfer of water and other volatiles in the inner solar system? 2) What are the physical properties and internal structure of Ceres? What do they tell us about the evolutionary and aqueous alteration history of icy dwarf planets? 3) What are the astrobiological implications of Ceres? Was it habitable in the past and is it still today? 4) What are the mineralogical connections between Ceres and our current collections of primitive meteorites? GAUSS will first perform a high-resolution global remote sensing investigation, characterizing the geophysical and geochemical properties of Ceres. Candidate sampling sites will then be identified, and observation campaigns will be run for an in-depth assessment of the candidate sites. Once the sampling site is selected, a lander will be deployed on the surface to collect samples and return them to Earth in cryogenic conditions that preserves the volatile and organic composition as well as the original physical status as much as possible., Section 3.4 revised; List of team members updated; Typos corrected

Wir stellen das Projekt Nachtlicht-BüHNE vor, welches als Gemeinschaftsprojekt von DLR, GFZ und UFZ im Rahmen der Ausschreibung „CitizenScience@Helmholtz" gefördert wird. Nachtlicht-BüHNE adressiert Citizen Science im Kontext der wissenschaftlichen Anwendungsbereiche Astronomie, Weltraumforschung und Lichtverschmutzung. Ziel ist die Entwicklung eines Co-Design-Ansatzes für App-basierte Citizen-Science-Projekte bei dem Bürger mit Wissenschaftlern zusammenarbeiten. Im Rahmen von zwei Pilotstudien zu den Themen Lichtverschmutzung und Meteorforschung entwickeln Wissenschaftler und Bürger zwei Citizen-Science-Projekte. Die resultierende Co-Designmethodik wird im Rahmen einer Webplattform mit geeigneten kollaborativen Werkzeugen bereitgestellt. Untersucht werden auch mögliche Synergiepotentiale durch die Beteiligung interessierter Bürger an mehreren inhaltlich angrenzenden Projekten.

The European Fireball Network (EN) has been continuously operating since the late 60s, recording on average 30-40 fireballs every year. The overall objective of this work is to provide the data on these events recorded by the first generation camera stations of the EN to the European Space Agency (ESA) on a regularly basis. The collected metadata of all fireball events will be updated to meet the required import format and will be ingested into the Fireball Information System (FIS), managed by ESA. This also includes the delivery of the corresponding image data. Furthermore, a fast reporting service on fireball events is currently used to the digital all-sky camera located at German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin-Adlershof. Plans to extend the network by installing new digital camera stations are currently under investigation. At least one additional automated camera system is planned to be installed in the vicinity of the first camera station for simultaneous observations of events, allowing the reduction of double-station fireball image data. Information about recorded and confirmed fireball events will be sent to ESA via e-mail in predefined format.

The ESA/JAXA joint mission BepiColombo to Mercury was launched successfully on October 20, 2018 (UTC) from Kourou, French Guiana. Currently BepiColombo is on its nominal 7-years cruise to the innermost planet. BepiColombo consists of two spacecraft, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), both targeted for different orbits around Mercury after arrival in December 2025. The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA) is one of ten payloads on the MPO. After launch the spacecraft and the instruments entered the Near-Earth Commissioning Phase (NECP), including a first switch-on of BELA on November24, 2018. Here we report on the status of the instrument based on the analysis of NECP data and on data from a second switch-on, planned for June 2019.

The photogrammetric bundle adjustment of line scanner image data requires a precise description of the time-dependent image orientation. For this task exterior orientation parameters of discrete points are used to model position and viewing direction of a camera trajectory via polynomials. This paper investigates the influence of the distance between these orientation points on the quality of trajectory modeling. A new method adapts the distance along the trajectory to the available image information. Compared to a constant distance as used previously, a better reconstruction of the exterior orientation is possible, especially when image quality changes within a strip. In our research we use image strips of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), taken to map the Martian surface. Several experiments on the global image data set have been carried out to investigate how the bundle adjustment improves the image orientation, if the new method is employed. For evaluation the forward intersection errors of 3D points derived from HRSC images, as well as their remaining height differences to the MOLA DTM are used. In 13.5 % (515 of 3,828) of the image strips, taken during this ongoing mission over the last 12 years, high frequency image distortions were found. Bundle adjustment with a constant orientation point distance was able to reconstruct the orbit in 239 (46.4 %) cases. A variable orientation point distance increased this number to 507 (98.6 %). German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) German Aerospace Center (DLR)/50 QM 1304

On September 21, 2017, a large fireball appeared over the Netherlands and vanished over the North Sea. Scores of eyewitness reports with descriptions of the phenomenon arrived through our notification e-mail address feuerkugel@dlr.de. By studying these reports, given with varying level of details, and by comparing them with other trusted sources we may appreciate how reliable and complete the reported data are. This might be helpful for us to improve our notification system in the future. Also, reports sometimes include information not easily obtained by other observing techniques. On the other hand, the reporting system is useful to promote public awareness of Earth in the environment of space.

The goal of this paper is to investigate the maximum level of semantic resolution that can be achieved in an automated land use change detection process based on mono-temporal, multi-spectral, high-resolution aerial image data. For this purpose, we perform a step-wise refinement of the land use classes that follows the hierarchical structure of most object catalogues for land use databases. The investigation is based on our previous work for the simultaneous contextual classification of aerial imagery to determine land cover and land use. Land cover is determined at the level of small image segments. Land use classification is applied to objects from the geospatial database. Experiments are carried out on two test areas with different characteristics and are intended to evaluate the step-wise refinement of the land use classes empirically. The experiments show that a semantic resolution of ten classes still delivers acceptable results, where the accuracy of the results depends on the characteristics of the test areas used. Furthermore, we confirm that the incorporation of contextual knowledge, especially in the form of contextual features, is beneficial for land use classification. Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landesvermessung Niedersachsen (LGLN) Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation Schleswig Holstein (LVermGeo)

We automatically detected ice block falls in high resolution satellite images of the north polar region of Mars, with the aim of understanding their role in erosion processes and the morphological evolution of the region. Our change detection method is based on the combination of Binary Large OBjects (BLOB)detection and machine learning and we aim to extend our investigation to all steep scarps of the margin of the north polar ice cap where suitable high resolution data exist.

We report on recent refinements and the current status for the rotational state models and the reference frame of the planet Mercury. We summarize the performed measurements of Mercury rotation based on terrestrial radar observations as well as data from the Mariner 10 and the MESSENGER missions. Further, we describe the different available definitions of reference systems for Mercury, which are realized using data obtained by instruments on board MESSENGER. In particular, we discuss the dynamical frame, the principal-axes frame, the ellipsoid frame, as well as the cartographic frame. We also describe the reference frame adopted by the MESSENGER science team for the release of their cartographic products and we provide expressions for transformations from this frame to the other reference frames.

For a systematic mapping of the Martian surface, the Mars Express orbiter is equipped with a multi-line scanner: Since the beginning of 2004 the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) regularly acquires long image strips. By now more than 4,000 strips covering nearly the whole planet are available. Due to the nine channels, each with different viewing direction, and partly with different optical filters, each strip provides 3D and color information and allows the generation of digital terrain models (DTMs) and orthophotos. To map larger regions, neighboring HRSC strips can be combined to build DTM and orthophoto mosaics. The global mapping scheme Mars Chart 30 is used to define the extent of these mosaics. In order to avoid unreasonably large data volumes, each MC-30 tile is divided into two parts, combining about 90 strips each. To ensure a seamless fit of these strips, several radiometric and geometric corrections are applied in the photogrammetric process. A simultaneous bundle adjustment of all strips as a block is carried out to estimate their precise exterior orientation. Because size, position, resolution and image quality of the strips in these blocks are heterogeneous, also the quality and distribution of the tie points vary. In absence of ground control points, heights of a global terrain model are used as reference information, and for this task a regular distribution of these tie points is preferable. Besides, their total number should be limited because of computational reasons. In this paper, we present an algorithm, which optimizes the distribution of tie points under these constraints. A large number of tie points used as input is reduced without affecting the geometric stability of the block by preserving connections between strips. This stability is achieved by using a regular grid in object space and discarding, for each grid cell, points which are redundant for the block adjustment. The set of tie points, filtered by the algorithm, shows a more homogenous distribution and is considerably smaller. Used for the block adjustment, it yields results of equal quality, with significantly shorter computation time. In this work, we present experiments with MC-30 half-tile blocks, which confirm our idea for reaching a stable and faster bundle adjustment. The described method is used for the systematic processing of HRSC data.

著者人数: 15名, Accepted: 2014-02-17, 資料番号: SA1004597000