re japanese moon landing in article qnb tinn ff rave larc nasa gov c o egalon larc nasa gov claudio oliveira egalon writes there is no such thing as a stable lunar orbit is it right that is new stuff for me so it means that you just can not put a sattellite around around the moon for too long because its orbit will be unstable if so what is the reason is that because the combined gravitacional atraction of the sun moon and earth that does not provide a stable orbit around the moon any lunar satellite needs fuel to do regular orbit corrections and when its fuel runs out it will crash within months the orbits of the apollo motherships changed noticeably during lunar missions lasting only a few days it is possible that there are stable orbits here and there the moon s gravitational field is poorly mapped but we know of none perturbations from sun and earth are relatively minor issues at low altitudes the big problem is that the moon s own gravitational field is quite lumpy due to the irregular distribution of mass within the moon all work is one man s work henry spencer u of toronto zoology kipling henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
