\n <\/font><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n **BACKGROUND AND LIVE IMPACT UPDATE PAGES**<\/em><\/p>\n Preview<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n The probe will impact the lunar surface at a speed of about 7,200km\/h (4,500mph), sending huge plums of dust, ejected into lunar orbit, which will be visible from Earth through telescopes and even binoculars. <\/p>\n Scientists will study the debris in order to help confirm the moon was formed from a collision between the Earth and another heavenly object. <\/p>\n This is Europe\u2019s first mission to the moon, but ESA have been quick to point at the mission\u2019s costs. At only $100m \u2013 including launch costs \u2013 the mission has achieved multiple mission objectives. <\/font><\/p>\n The tiny spacecraft\u2019s Ion propulsion system performed as planned, although the trip to the moon took a lot longer than normal, taking 15 months to arrive into lunar orbit. Ion engines will now be fitted to the majority of Europe\u2019s new probes, including the BepiColumbo mission to Mercury. <\/font><\/p>\n Once SMART-1 arrived at the moon, the probe produced detailed maps of the moon\u2019s chemical make-up, during an 18 month mission in lunar orbit. It has also taken detailed maps of the surface, which will aid future manned missions to the moon.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2018This is the first of a fleet of orbiters that will head to the moon,\u2019 said Dr Bernard Foing of ESA. \u2018The next step will be polar landers, that could be part of an international robotic village, before preparing for a human outpost and base.\u2019<\/p>\n **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/u><\/p>\n <\/em><\/font><\/p>\n Rocket building kits (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Europe\u2019s three year moon mission has to come to an end, as SMART-1 completed its final objective by crashing into the lunar surface. The European Space Agency (ESA) probe \u2013 which was launched on an Ariane 5 launch vehicle \u2013 was on its collision course, for an impact which was successful at 1:42:22am EDT (06:42:22 […]<\/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-41956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41956"}],"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=41956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/em><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n
<\/font>\u2018Just because the astronauts went to the Moon doesn\u2019t mean they found out everything there is to find out,\u2019 said Professor David Southwood, the head of science at the ESA.<\/font> <\/p>\n
<\/em><\/font> <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n
<\/em><\/font><\/em><\/font>
<\/em><\/font>
<\/em><\/font>LIVE UPDATE PAGES<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n