Countdown for LRO and LCROSS
Now that Kaguya has crashed, only the Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 is holding the fort. But reinforcements are on their way: NASA is launching two lunar probes today.
Today, Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 23:12 Central European Daylight Saving Time, an Atlas V 401 will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying two NASA spacecraft.
LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has a launch mass of more than 1.9 metric tons and will arrive at the Moon four days after launch, then to be lowered successively into a circular polar orbit with an altitude of only 50 km, which is perfect for global surveys of our Moon. The science phase shall last at least one year.
Find out more about the mission and the scientific instrumentation here:
The other spacecraft, NASA Ames Research Center's LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) will have a somewhat shol perform a deflection manoeuvre to target the stack of upper stage and LCROSS probe for a lunar swingby, inserting into a wide, inclined ellipse. Months later, the stack will be targeted for high-speed lunar impact. Aroudn 10 hours prior to this impact, LCROSS whill finally separate from the spent Centaur stage.
The Centaur will crash into a deep crater at one of the lunar poles, kicking up a huge cloud of material than can be observed and spectroscopically examined by terrestrial telescopes. The LCROSS probe itself will traverse the debris cloud and analyze it, immediately sending its data to Earth before it too expires in a crash, creating a second debris cloud.
There are theories that deep craters near the poles, which are never reached by sunlight and therefore remain extremely cold, may contain ice deposits, remainders of ancient comet impacts. Measurements by lunar-orbiting spacecraft and terrestrial radio telescopes have not confirmed these theories. The only way to know for sure is to go there directly and find out, which is what LCROSS will do.
I think both missions are extremely cool:
- LRO especially because of the optical instrument package LROC, whose two narrow angle cameras will be capable of making panchromatic images with a resolution of 50 cm. That should finally put all these absurd conspiracy theories to rest.
- LCROSS because of the boldness and originality of its mission design. Congratulations to NASA and its engineers for coming up with something like this. It must really be fun to work on such a mission!
Further Information
Countdown Portal: KSC-Webcam of the ELV Launchpad and live video feed
Related Articles:
http://www.nasa.gov/145590main_Digital_Media.asx
Today, June 23, 2009 at 0630 EDT (1230 CEDT), LRO arrived at the Moon and performed LOI (Lunar Orbit Insertion), the first manoeuvre of a sequence that will finally place the spacecraft in its target orbit 50 km above the lunar surface.
Congratulations to the colleagues at NASA. Great job!
http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/hardware/25tothemoon.html