Washington - In the 40 years since the first man set foot on
the moon, NASA has turned its attention away from Earth's nearest
celestial neighbour to look ever deeper into space and build an
orbiting space station.
But much remains mysterious about the moon, and NASA hopes to
clear up some of the remaining questions with dual missions designed
to set the course for the resumption of human lunar exploration.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater
Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) are to launch aboard a
single rocket on June 17. Together they will send data back to NASA
to help scientists find the best location for a spacecraft landing to
again bring humans to the moon.
The moon would eventually serve as a jumping-off platform for
exploring Mars, according to NASA's long-term objectives as set by
former president George W Bush.
The LRO will orbit the moon, taking the most detailed images yet
of the lunar surface, creating three-dimensional maps that are
accurate to within one metre, showing details as small as boulder. It
will measure radiation on the surface to scout for possible dangers
to astronauts.
'We have much better maps of Mars than we have of our own moon's
polar regions,' said Craig Tooley, project manager for the 504-
million-dollar LRO mission.
He told reporters that while the Apollo missions stayed near the
moon's equator, the lunar poles are the likely landing targets for a
potential manned spacecraft.
The LRO will orbit the moon for about a year to develop the maps,
before turning its attention to other scientific endeavours being
proposed by scientists.
'LRO will bring new eyes to the moon and with these eyes we'll
see new views of the moon,' said Rich Vondrack, a project scientist
on the mission.
Its eyes consist of seven instruments pointed at narrow sections
of the moon which will gradually capture the entire surface. It will
pay special attention to 100 regions of high interest.
The LCROSS will focus on determining whether water could be hidden
in the shadowy craters of the moon near its poles. An earlier lunar
satellite found high levels of hydrogen in the atmosphere near the
poles, a hint that water could be present.
NASA scientists said that it is possible for frozen water to have
remained in the moon's craters for billions of years, because the
bottoms of the craters are never reached by sunlight and protect any
ice from evaporation into the moon's thin lunar atmosphere.
After launch, the rocket will deliver the LRO into orbit around
the moon, then take a long loop around the moon and earth still
carrying the LCROSS satellite.
The manoeuvre is designed to properly position LCROSS to crash
into the moon around 110 days later, around October 7-11. LCROSS is
to separate into two parts that will crash into a dark crater. The
first part will send up a cloud of dust to be measured by a second,
trailing device that will also crash into the moon.
The total event will last just 120 seconds, but scientists say the
impact will provide valuable information to be collected on nine
instruments, including five cameras that capture images in colour,
thermal and near infrared images.
Images of the impact will also be captured by the orbiting LRO, as
well as the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes on Earth. The
composition of the material kicked up by the impact will help
scientists deduce whether water is present.
But more low-tech instruments will also be able to see the impact,
which should be visible to amateur stargazers using standard
telescopes. NASA also plans to stream the images live on its website.
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