Photogrammetric 3D reconstruction of Apollo 17 Station 6: From boulders to lunar rock samples integrated into virtual reality

International audience ; Apollo 17 astronauts spent three days exploring the Taurus Littrow Valley on the Moon in 1972. During theirthird Extravehicular Activity, they spent more than one hour at Station 6, a geologic waypoint consisting of threebig and two small fragments of a boulder that rolled down the North massif. We have used all the available scanneddigital Apollo photos taken by the astronauts at this Station 6 to compute a comprehensive 3D model of theexplored area. We used Structure From Motion photogrammetry to automatically derive the position of each ofthe 154 available images using their overlap. All images were aligned in a single photogrammetric project, whichallows on one hand to automatically visualize the astronaut positions during their investigations, and on the otherhand to reconstruct in 3D the three main pieces of boulders, therefore constraining their respective size andorientation. In addition to the boulders, we show that the 3D reconstruction by photogrammetry can also be appliedto the rock samples taken from the boulders themselves. These samples were systematically photographed frommultiple angles at the LPI during the 70s when brought back to Earth. For the reconstruction, we used scannedarchived images representing 16 stereoscopic pairs, to compute 3D models of samples 76015, 76215, 76315 and76275. These models might play a role in preservation as some of the samples, latter sawed for analysis, do notexist anymore in their pristine form. 3D models of the boulders and rock samples can then be manipulated andvisualized on a web-based platform. 3D models have also been integrated into a virtual reality scene in order toprovide the possibility to investigate their properties at full scale in an immersive and collaborative way. Theknowledge of the samples position and orientation directly in their context might for example provide additionalconstrains to better understand processes such as the space weathering alteration due to micrometeorite impactsand solar wind particle. 3D ...