CentralNotice From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment from the Apollo 11 mission. The ongoing Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment measures the distance between the Earth and the Moon using laser ranging . Lasers on Earth are aimed at retroreflectors planted on the Moon during the Apollo program (11, 14, and 15), and the time for the reflected light to return is determined. Apollo 15 LRRR Apollo 15 LRRR schematic The first successful tests were carried out in 1962 when a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in observing laser pulses reflected from moon's surface using a laser with a millisecond pulse length. Similar measurements were obtained later the same year by a Soviet team at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory using a Q-switched ruby laser . [ 1 ] Greater accurac...