Lunar orbit
Orbit of an object around the Moon / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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In astronomy and spaceflight, a lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is an orbit of an object around Earth's Moon. In general these orbits are not circular. When farthest from the Moon (at apoapsis) a spacecraft is said to be at apolune, apocynthion, or aposelene. When closest to the Moon (at periapsis) it is said to be at perilune, pericynthion, or periselene. These derive from names or epithets of the moon goddess.
Lunar orbit insertion (LOI) is an orbit insertion maneuver used to achieve lunar orbit.[1]
Low lunar orbit (LLO) is an orbit below 100 km (62 mi) altitude. These have a period of about 2 hours.[2] They are of particular interest in the exploration of the Moon, but suffer from gravitational perturbations that make most unstable, and leave only a few orbital trajectories possible for indefinite frozen orbits. These would be useful for long-term stays in LLO.[2]