3D reconstruction of lunar rock samples collected at North Massif Station 6 during the Apollo 17 mission 

Stéphane Le Mouélic (1) , Louis Macquet (1) , Harrison Schmitt (2) , Nicolas Mangold (1) , Gwénaël Caravaca (3) , Benoît Seignovert (1) , Erwan Le Menn (1)

1 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géosciences [UMR_C 6112]
2 Department of Engineering Physics
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie

The Apollo 17 manned mission landed in the Taurus Littrow valley on the Moon in December 1972. The geology of this site, on the eastern edge of Mare Serenitatis, was thoroughly investigated during extra vehicular activities performed during three days spent at the surface [1, 2]. A total of 111 kg of well-documented rock and soil samples were collected and brought back to Earth during this last Apollo mission. Among several waypoints of interest, astronauts spent more than one hour to investigate five large boulder fragments at Station 6, lying at the base of a long boulder trail descending from the North Massif. These boulders might originate in material emplaced as a result from the ejected melt sheet from the Crisium impact event [2], or Serenitatis impact event [3, 4]. In a recent study [5], we used scanned photographs taken in situ with astronaut’s Hasselblad cameras to reconstruct a 3D model of each of the boulders using photogrammetry techniques [6].

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]; Stratigraphie; Sciences de la Terre; Planétologie

Stéphane Le Mouélic, Louis Macquet, Harrison Schmitt, Nicolas Mangold, Gwénaël Caravaca, et al.. 3D reconstruction of lunar rock samples collected at North Massif Station 6 during the Apollo 17 mission . Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Europlanet, Sep 2022, Granada, Spain. pp.EPSC2022-348, ⟨10.5194/epsc2022-348⟩. ⟨hal-03842472⟩