This map of Jackson crater was produced by combining two Mini-RF radar images to determine the heights of features. Mini-RF data can be used to produce high-resolution topography. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., performed the final testing and integration of the instrument and runs the day-to-day science operations. ![]() ![]() Mini-RF was developed and built by the Naval Air Warfare Center and several other government and commercial contributors, including Sandia National Laboratories, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Meeting another mission goal, Mini-RF operated in a communications mode, able to transmit and receive signals from Earth – a technology that could allow future missions to save mass and power. Mini-RF proved that a small, lightweight synthetic aperture radar instrument can be part of a larger payload, instead of requiring a dedicated spacecraft (as was needed on past radar missions, such as Magellan to Venus). More than 38 terabytes of data have been delivered so far to NASA’s Planetary Data System archive, where it is available to lunar scientists and the general public. Mini-RF also collected the first radar images of the lunar far side –the hemisphere of the moon that is never visible from Earth – and imaged the floors of permanently shadowed impact craters that can’t be seen from Earth. Instead of the planned two hours of science collection, Mini-RF gathered more than 400 hours of science data. Original mission plans called for Mini-RF to gather two 6- by 240-mile “strips” of data per month the instrument collected more than 2,000 strips of data covering about two thirds of the lunar surface, including 98 percent of both polar regions. Mini-RF spent 18 months successfully mapping the moon.
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