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Nevertheless, this confirmation in no way diminishes the vital role of the LCROSS mission because the confirmation of lunar water also revealed that the amount of water on the moon\u2019s surface is minute \u2013 only about 32-ounces per one ton of the lunar top surface.<\/p>\n
As such, LCROSS\u2019s mission is, and has been, to eject a deeper layer of the lunar material (a layer below the top soil) beyond the rim of a permanently shadowed polar crater so that LCROSS, LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, and hundreds (if not thousands) of ground-based telescopes can monitor and analyze the ejecta plume for the presense, consistency, and concentration of water.<\/p>\n
To accomplish these objectives, LCROSS was launched underneath the LRO on an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on June 18, 2009.<\/p>\n
Shortly have being injected into a lunar transfer orbit via the Atlas V Centaur\u2019s upper stage rocket engine, LCROSS and its companion Centaur upper stage separated from the LRO spacecraft.<\/p>\n
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Four days later, LCROSS\/Centaur successfully performed a lunar \u201cswing-by,\u201d placing the duo into an elongated polar Earth orbit with a period (or orbital time) of 37-days. This was accompanied by a guided blow down \u2013 blowing cold propellants through the Centaur\u2019s engine, without igniting the engine, to get a few hundred pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n
After that, the Centaur upper stage (with attached LCROSS) was put into a flat-spin to deplete propellants and inert the Centaur upper-stage so that no contaminants are introduced to the Cabeus crater during Centaur impact.<\/p>\n
Over the next three months, NASA collected data on the leading lunar south pole craters that could host the Centaur\/LCROSS impacts. These observations came via images and hydrogen concentration measurements from NASA\u2019s LRO satellite as well as the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency\u2019s Kaguya spacecraft \u2013 which both indicated that the crater Cabeus contained the greatest concentration of hydrogen atoms at the moon\u2019s southern polar region.<\/p>\n
On October 8, the LCROSS and Centaur separated from each other in preparation for the October 9 duel impacts.<\/p>\n
![\"A2\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/A26.jpg\" "\\"A2\\"")
Later this morning, LCROSS will fire its thrusters to slightly lower its velocity, allowing it to trail about four minutes behind the Centaur upper stage and fly through the ejecta cloud created by the Centaur\u2019s impact with Cabeus.<\/p>\nBy flying through the ejecta cloud, LCROSS will collect invaluable scientific data (including visual observations) and transmit that data real-time to Earth.<\/p>\n
Onboard the LCROSS spacecraft are a host of scientific instruments including two near-infrared spectrometers, a visible light spectrometer, two mid-infrared cameras, two near-infrared cameras, a visible camera, and a visible radiometer.<\/p>\n
These instruments were selected to \u201cprovide mission scientists with multiple complimentary views of the debris plume created by the Centaur impact,\u201d notes a NASA fact sheet about the mission.<\/p>\n
Following the Centaur\u2019s impact, the ejecta cloud will rise above the surface of the crater\u2019s rim \u2013 thereby exposing the ejecta to sunlight. Once this occurs, any water, hydrocarbons, or organic materials will vaporize or sublimate and break down into their basic components.<\/p>\n
It is these components that the LCROSS spacecraft will monitor and analyze as it passes through the ejecta cloud.<\/p>\n
The near-infrared and mid-infrared cameras will help determine the total amount and distribution of water in the debris plume while the visible radiometer will monitor the flash created by the Centaur\u2019s impact on the surface.<\/p>\n
After flying through the debris cloud, the LCROSS satellite will also impact the lunar surface, creating a second debris cloud.<\/p>\n
Both of these debris plumes will be visible from Earth-based telescopes of 10- to 12 inches and larger across a majority of the continental U.S. and North America.<\/p>\n
The plumes are also expected to be visible from space-based telescopes as well \u2013 including the recently repaired\/upgrading Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n
Together, the LRO\/LCROSS missions \u2013 which are components of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program from the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama \u2013 will help map the moon\u2019s surface and pave the way for future robotic and human missions in the years to come.<\/p>\n
As Todd May stated in the LRO\/LCROSS pre-launch briefing on Monday, \u201cLRO and LCROSS will give us the information about the moon that we already have about Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a three month 21-day cruise through space to boil off excess propellant and fine tune a final approach to the moon, NASA\u2019s LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) mission concluded Friday morning, as the companion Atlas V Centaur upper stage and the LCROSS satellite slammed into the Cabeus crater in the moon\u2019s southern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}