What is the use of apollo satellite mirrors on moon?
Answers
The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging experiment measures the distance between surfaces of Earth and the Moon using laser ranging. Lasers at observatories on Earth are aimed at retroreflectors planted on the Moon during the Apollo program (11, 14, and 15), and the two Lunokhod missions.[1] Laser light pulses are transmitted and reflected back to Earth, and the round-trip duration is measured. The lunar distance is calculated from this value.
The Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment was deployed on Apollo 11, 14, and 15. It consists of a series of corner-cube reflectors, which are a special type of mirror with the property of always reflecting an incoming light beam back in the direction it came from. A similar device was also included on the Soviet Union's Lunakhod 2 spacecraft. These reflectors can be illuminated by laser beams aimed through large telescopes on Earth. The reflected laser beam is also observed with the telescope, providing a measurement of the round-trip distance between Earth and the Moon. This is the only Apollo experiment that is still returning data from the Moon.