Catch a Re-Run of LCROSS

If you missed NASA’s live coverage on Friday of the two LCROSS impacts at the South Pole of the moon, you can catch it again on the LCROSS mission home page, http://www.nasa.gov/lcross. You’ll find links to the videos and images along the right margin.

On Friday morning at 7:31 a.m. EDT / 4:31 a.m. PDT, NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) created to impacts in crater Cabeus at the South Pole of the Moon. The first impact was created by the Centaur upper stage which carried LCROSS and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to the Moon. LCROSS guided the Centaur to its target, hitting the surface at more than 1.5 miles per second. The second impact was created a few minutes later by the LCROSS spacecraft itself. The LCROSS spacecraft guidance teams are tremendously pleased that their part of the mission went so well. They definitely have smiles all around. But now the data analysis teams are working hard determine what the mission has told us.

The goal of the LCROSS mission was to confirm the presence or absence of water-ice in the dark and cold craters of the Moon’s South Pole. During the impacts, observations were made by LCROSS and LRO in lunar orbit, by observatories in Earth orbit, and by several ground-based facilities. At the moment, scientists are carefully studying all of the observation data.

The impacts did not create a spectacular plume of debris like the one made by NASA’s Deep Impact mission on Comet Temple 1 on July 4, 2005. Interestingly enough, we are being told that this is can be a good thing. Apparently, a bright flash or a highly visible impact plume would have suggested that the impactors had struck rock. Softer material like lunar soil or ice would not necessarily be easy to see in visible light, with all of that dark space in the background. But all areas of the electromagnetic spectrum were covered by the Friday observations and the data is being reviewed by the science times with great interest. They, like the rest of us, are curious to learn the answer regarding the amounts of water ice. But we must now be patient, for it will take the teams several weeks of study before they know exactly what that answer is.

The LCROSS and LRO spacecraft began their missions together on June 18, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. LRO will continue its mission to search for resources, like water, which will be useful in future space exploration. To catch a re-run of the impacts, and to learn more about the mission, check out these links:

NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission
http://www.nasa.gov/lcross/

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mission
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html

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