Abstract
Optical observations were made from the orbiting spacecraft to craters on the lunar surface during Apollo missions 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 15. Very accurate selenographic locations for 31 craters have been obtained from these data. The estimated radius values, with respect to the center of mass of the Moon, for the near side maria were smaller than the nominally accepted value of 1738 km. Gross figure of the Moon estimates were obtained for both a sphere and a constrained ellipsoid. These data appear to provide some proof that there is a displacement between the center of figure and the center of mass of the Moon.
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Wollenhaupt, W.R., Osburn, R.K. & Ransford, G.A. Comments on the figure of the moon from apollo landmark tracking. The Moon 5, 149–157 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00562109
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00562109