In this study, the numerical simulation method is used to systematically analyze the changes of the effective diffraction area of the next-generation single lunar corner reflector under different laser beam incident conditions. The influence of different lunar corner retroreflector orientations on ground observations is comprehensively discussed. The Levenberg-Marquardt method is used to optimize the corner retroreflector orientations in three typical regions by simulating the real observation time. The results show that the moon’s apparent libration is the main influencing factor affecting the effective diffraction area. This effect can only be reduced by optimizing the orientation, and there is no way to eliminate it. Meanwhile, the observation efficiency of low-latitude laser lunar stations is significantly higher than that of high-latitude stations. In addition, China is located in the eastern part of Asia, forming an excellent complementary effect with the stations in European countries and the United States. The results suggest that we should fully utilize the favorable conditions at the two low-latitude stations, the 1.2 m laser lunar ranging station of Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Zhuhai Tianqin laser lunar ranging station, to make significant contributions in future lunar exploration and laser ranging experiments.
Yongzhang Yang, Honglin Fu, Shangbiao Sun, Dongsheng Zhai, Zhulian Li, Yuqiang Li. Corner Retroreflector Direction Optimization for Lunar Laser Ranging[J]. Chinese Journal of Lasers, 2022, 49(6): 0604003