Thanks to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Data ARchives and Transmission System (DARTS), the USGS and partners were able to generate over 127,000 DTMs wrapping the Moon globally from -70˚ to +70˚ latitude using the Kaguya TC USGSCSM sensor model and NASA’s Ames Stereo Pipeline for processing.
These data are released under the CC0-1.0 license. Reference:
Laura, J.R., Alexandrov, O., Adoram-Kershner, L., Bauck, K., Wheeler, B., Hare, T.M. 2024. Kaguya Terrain Camera, USGS Processed DTMs Analysis Ready Data Release. https://doi.org/10.5066/P13D7VMG
tip: When using the GeoSTAC web-map interface to help locate the data, you will need to first select the body (top left, Earth → Moon) and then the STAC dataset (top right, “Kaguya/SELENE Terrain Camera (TC) USGS DTMs (Raster)”).
Goals for the data:
- These data provide medium-resolution, near-global topographic coverage of the lunar surface with absolute alignment to LOLA.
- Exhibit improved Minimum Reliably Resolvable Feature (MRRF) better than the SLDEM2015 product. This improvement is a function of input data resolution and stereopair view geometry.
- Achieve near-global coverage while biasing towards the extended mission phase when the spacecraft orbit was lower and data resolution generally was improved.
- Create DTMs at least 0.5˚ latitude in total along-track size.
- Produce overlapping DTM coverage to support accuracy and precision analysis of the results.
- Release under the STAC API via Registry of Open Data on AWS (managed by NASA), using a stream-able cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs (COGs). Just means using a capable GIS, you should not need to download the file (use directly from the cloud).
Novel aspects:
- The sensor model intrinsics (distortion model and focal length) have been reestimated as a part of this work. The sensor model intrinsics used to create these DTMs differ from the JAXA-published sensor model (in the SPICE IK kernel) as of May 2024. In short, the improved intrinsics have improved the vertical and horizontal co-registration of the DTMs.
- The estimated mean vertical offset to LOLA shots at the 99th percentile is 11 centimeters. Horizontal errors are about 1 pixel (in meters, depends on the output DTM pixel size). There are still large potential blunders in a subset of DTMs, thus users of these DTMs should visualize the available error metric files.
- For controlling to LOLA, the Kaguya data was aligned to the ARD (cloud-optimized) release of LOLA shots: Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (Spot Observations) | Astrogeology Analysis Ready Data