Lunar-VISE: Landing Site Terrain and Visibility Data for Mons Gruithuisen Gamma

Data for the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE) landing site selection at Mons Gruithuisen Gamma on the Moon. The dataset includes map-projected LROC NAC images, derived slopes and surface roughness from a 2 m/pixel DTM, modeled illumination maps, and shapefiles for landing ellipses and feature counts. It was created by Jean-Pierre Williams of UCLA using ISIS3 and ArcGIS Pro software for NASA's PRISM program.

Use Cases

• Modeling solar illumination conditions for rover operations based on topographic data from LOLA and LROC.
• Assessing terrain ruggedness for landing safety using the derived Terrain Ruggedness Index (TRI).
• Performing line-of-sight visibility analysis for rover communication based on the provided viewshed rasters.
• Characterizing surface features like boulder and crater density within potential landing ellipses.

Strengths

• Derived from high-resolution 2 m/pixel LROC NAC Digital Terrain Models (DTMs).
• Includes multiple analytical products: slope maps, TRI roughness, illumination models, and shapefiles.
• Visibility analysis accounts for multiple potential lander positions (center, north, south edges of ellipse).
• Processing used established algorithms (Horn's algorithm for slope, Wilson et al. for TRI).

Limitations

• Row count and total file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

University of California, Los Angeles / NASA PRISM program

Collection Method

Individual LROC NAC images were calibrated, map-projected using ISIS3, and analyzed with ArcGIS Pro. Terrain metrics were derived from published DTMs.

Geography

Gruithuisen domes region, Mons Gruithuisen Gamma, Moon