Lunar orbit Lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by various manned or unmanned spacecraft around the Moon. The altitude at apoapsis (point farthest from the surface) for a lunar orbit is known as apolune, apocynthion, or aposelene, while the periapsis (point closest to the surface) is known as perilune, pericynthion, or periselene, from names or epithets of the moon goddess. Low lunar orbit (LLO)—orbits below altitude—are
Near-Earth Object Camera Near-Earth Object Camera The Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) is a proposed space-based infrared telescope designed to survey the Solar System for potentially hazardous asteroids. NEOCam would survey from the Sun–Earth Lagrange point, allowing it to look close to the Sun and see objects inside Earth's orbit. NEOCam would be a successor to the WISE mission; the principal investigator is also WISE's principal investigator, Amy Mainzer of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Proposals for NEOCam were submitted in 2006, 2010, and 2015 to the NASA Discovery Program, but it has not been selected for launch. The primary scientific goal of NEOCam is