CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA successfully
launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS,
Thursday on a mission to search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater
at the moon's south pole. The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 5:32 p.m. EDT, with a companion
mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)
LRO safely separated from LCROSS 45 minutes later. LCROSS then was powered-up,
and the mission operations team at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett
Field, Calif., performed system checks that confirmed the spacecraft is fully
functional.
LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket separately will collide
with the moon at approximately 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2009, creating a pair of
debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water
vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are
tentatively targeted to impact the moon's south pole near the Cabeus region.
The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after
considering information collected by LRO, other spacecraft orbiting the moon,
and observatories on Earth.
"LCROSS has been the little mission that could," said Doug Cooke, associate
administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. "We stand poised for an amazing mission and
possible answers to some very intriguing questions about the moon."
The 1,290-pound LCROSS and 5,216-pound Centaur upper stage will perform a
swing-by maneuver of the moon around 6 a.m. on June 23 to calibrate the
satellite's science instruments and enter a long, looping polar orbit around
Earth and the moon. Each orbit will be roughly perpendicular to the moon's
orbit around Earth and take about 37 days to complete. Before impact, the
spacecraft and Centaur will make approximately three orbits.
On the final approach, about 54,000 miles above the surface, LCROSS and the
Centaur will separate. LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn its science
payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to slow down. The spacecraft will
observe the flash from the Centaur's impact and fly through the debris plume.
Data will be collected and streamed to LCROSS mission operations for analysis.
Four minutes later, LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume.
"This mission is the culmination of a dedicated team that had a great idea,"
said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames. "And now we'll engage
people around the world in looking at the moon and thinking about our next
steps there."
The LCROSS science team will lead a coordinated observation campaign that
includes LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, observatories on Hawaii'sMauna Kea
and amateur astronomers around the world.
Ames manages LCROSS and also built the instrument payload. Northrop Grumman in
Redondo Beach, Calif., built the spacecraft.
The LCROSS mission is providing updates via @LCROSS_NASA on Twitter. To
follow, visit:
http://www.twitter.com/lcross_nasa
For more information about the LCROSS mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/lcross
SOURCE NASA
Grey Hautaluoma, +1-202-358-0668, or grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov, or Ashley
Edwards, +1-202-358-1756, or ashley.edwards-1@nasa.gov, both for Headquarters,
Washington, or Jonas Dino, Ames Research Center, +1-650-207-3280,
jonas.dino@nasa.gov, all of NASA
