LOLA DEM Assisted Photogrammetric Processing of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter NAC Images for the Lunar South Pole

Abstract

Because of its special significance, exploration missions and research at the Lunar South Pole (LSP) are of considerable importance. The mapping products of the LSP such as Digital Ortho Maps (DOMs) and Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are essential to support exploration missions. However, in the LSP region, the available data are relatively limited. The large amounts of shadows and the special environment of the LSP has an important impact on both image matching and generation of mapping products. In this paper, we propose a photogrammetric processing method to improve the accuracy of the LRO NAC images by using LOLA DEM as auxiliary control data. The LOLA DEM was first rendered using the same illumination conditions as the corresponding LRO NAC raw images, and then matched to the LRO NAC DOMs. Next, the corresponding elevations of the tie points between LOLA DEMs and LRO NAC images were extracted and automatically added to the control network for bundle adjustment. In order to verify the feasibility of the method, we selected 17 LRO NAC images near the LSP at 85° south latitude. The results show that the proposed method can efficiently acquire uniformly distributed elevation control points for bundle adjustment and the generated DEM has a good consistency with the LOLA DEM.