Cinder Lake Crater Field
Unreviewed draft
This page was built from a teammate-supplied list. The text is teammate-written, unreviewed. Sources pending.
Summary
not provided
Location
- Country
- USA (Arizona)
- Coordinates
- 35.31, -111.50 (approximate)
- Elevation (m)
- 2020
- Year first used as an analog
- 1967
Terrain and geology
not provided
Climate
not provided
Parameters matched
not provided
Why it is an analog
Only full-scale, purpose-built replica of a real lunar landing site; ideal for navigation and EVA rehearsal.
Key differences: where the analogy breaks down
Craters are explosive, not hypervelocity (no shock metamorphism); cinder is coarse and moist; mid-latitude lighting.
Experiments done
Apollo 15-17 crews practised landmark recognition and traverses; Lunar Module mock-up landing-site location tests (Bailey 1967); Grover rover-simulator drives; USGS remote field-geology mission control trials.
Experiments proposed
Crater-counting and photogrammetry calibration; terrain-relative navigation datasets for landers; rover wheel-slip tests in loose cinder; Artemis LTV (lunar terrain vehicle) driving rehearsal; regolith-disturbance studies from rocket plume (small engine on a test stand).
How to adjust it
Re-blast fresh craters to the LROC-mapped pattern of an Artemis landing zone; top-dress with fine (<100 micron) simulant; add boulder fields from local basalt to match lunar rock abundance.
Access
not provided
Hazards
not provided
Sources
Sources pending (no sources in CSV).
v1 score, percentile and overlap flag
A descriptive lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is not a test, and a high percentile here does not show that this is a good analog.
v1 used this site
Yes. This place matches the v1 site "sf volcanic field", about 4.4 km away.
| Score view | Result | Percentile | Score | Distance to tile (km) | Overlap flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecting Ridge C1, Base | Scored | 66.2 | 1.2 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Landing and mobility | Scored | 70.6 | 0.9 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Power and night | Scored | 66.2 | 0.9 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Base | Scored | 74.9 | 27.3 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Landing and mobility | Scored | 82.1 | 31.3 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Power and night | Scored | 74.9 | 19.9 | 16.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
Overlap flag: whether the tile used for the score is one v1 flagged as stable in its top group across the Monte Carlo runs.
What these scores can and cannot tell you
- This is a lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is descriptive and is not a test of the method.
- A site is matched to the best-scoring tile that passed the gates within the match radius. A different radius would give different numbers.
- Tiles are large compared with most sites, so a score describes the surrounding area, not the site itself.
- Scores exist only for tiles that passed the land-cover and data gates. A gated-out or unscored site has no score, which says nothing about how good an analog it is.
- Percentile is the share of scored tiles in that view with a lower score.
- The Moon score is effectively terrain only. Mars is a low-confidence secondary result.
- v1 failed its negative controls, so a high percentile here does not show that a site is a good analog.
- The ranking is not checked against independent data. Gravity, air, dust and radiation are not scored.
- Sites are compared with views of their own body only.
- Match radius: 20 km, the radius v1 used.