MG11 
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APOLLO: Next-Generation Lunar Laser Ranging

APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation) is a newly operational laser ranging facility in southern New Mexico capable of one-millimeter range precision to the moon. In its commissioning phase, APOLLO has received as many as 2,500 return photons in a ten minute period. Half of the return photons are bundled in multi-photon return pulses. Within a year of the campaign start (June 2006), APOLLO will be able to make order-of-magnitude refinements to the best available measurements of the strong and weak equivalence principles and of the phenomenon of gravitomagnetism (frame dragging). A longer campaign will produce order-of-magnitude gains in measuring the time-rate-of-change of the gravitational constant, and will be sensitive to departures from the inverse square law.