Mapping planetary bodies

Abstract

As the United States and its space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), looks to send humans back to the Moon, many other countries and their space agencies are also sending orbiters, rovers, and sample return missions across the Solar System. We are living in an extraordinary age of planetary exploration, where every mission builds on the decades of advancements in satellite design and onboard instrumentation. Once we acknowledge this, we can turn to understanding and analyzing the wealth of collected data. Fortunately, the principles and methods used for terrestrial mapping can also be used for extraterrestrial bodies. Herein, we introduce the concepts and some challenges to mapping planetary bodies like the Moon, Mercury, Mars, and the numerous moons we have visited in our outer Solar System. These spacecrafts including orbiter and fly-by missions are often loaded with novel instrument types from intricate pushbroom cameras and multi- and hyper-spectral cameras to radar and laser altimeter instruments.