U.S. successful at lunar orbit with LRO spacecraft

William Atkins
Tuesday, 23 June 2009 18:41

Science - Space

The NASA article states, “The satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, examining permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. LRO will return more data about the moon than any previous mission.”

While LRO is performing its mission, the second spacecraft, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), also launched at the same time as LRO, is winging its way to the Moon, too.

It is expected to be shot past the Moon at about 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT) on Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at a distance of about 9,000 kilometers (5,590 miles).

The fly-by of the LCROSS can be viewed at the NASA website LCROSS-lunar-swingby.

The LCROSS, along with its Centaur upper stage rocket, will be inserted into a polar orbit for its intended mission: a collision with the Moon.

The Centaur RL10, built by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, is an upper stage from an expendable Atlas 5 rocket, built by United Launch Alliance, which lifted LRO/LCROSS off the ground on Earth at 5:32 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 18, 2009,

On October 9, 2009 the Centaur rocket will be crashed into the Moon’s south pole in a search for water ice. The crash will be recorded by LCROSS, which will next be crashed into the Moon.

Additional information on LCROSS and LRO are found at the June 20, 2009 iTWire article “U.S. Moon exploration begins with LRO/LCROSS liftoff.”