LRO and LCROSS on Their Way to the Moon

NASA has announced that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) have successfully launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida. The blast-off took place at 5:32 pm EDT (2132 GMT), aboard an Atlas V delivery system. The only thing that the lunar probes have in common is the fact that they launched together. Other than that, they will follow different paths, and different mission objectives as well.

“The orbiter [LRO] separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission [LCROSS], and immediately began powering up the components necessary to control the spacecraft. The flight operations team established communication with LRO and commanded the successful deployment of the solar array at 7:40 pm [EDT, 2340 GMT]. The operations team continues to check out the spacecraft subsystems and prepare for the first mid-course correction maneuver. NASA scientists expect to establish communications with LCROSS about four hours after launch, at approximately 9:30 pm [EDT, 0130 GMT],” the official press release on the American space agency's site says.

“This is a very important day for NASA. We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions,” NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Doug Cooke adds. He has been the designer and the developer of both lunar missions. “We learned much about the moon from the Apollo program, but now it is time to return to the moon for intensive study, and we will do just that with LRO,” LRO Project Scientist Richard Vondrak, from the Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, shares.

“During the 60 day commissioning period, we will turn on spacecraft components and science instruments. All instruments will be turned on within two weeks of launch, and we should start seeing the moon in new and greater detail within the next month,” LRO's Deputy Project Manager Cathy Peddie pinpoints. The main purpose of LRO is to map the lunar surface in great detail, to provide insightful information about potential resources that could be used for permanent human bases on the Moon in the future, as well as read the lunar topography and look for landing sites.

“Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon's surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments. NASA will use the data LRO collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and selecting the landing sites that will be their destinations,” LRO Project Manager Craig Tooley concludes.