14 DAY TRIAL // Starting in mid-November, the American space agency's latest lunar orbiter will finally begin its science mission around the Moon. NASA announces that the instruments aboard the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) are now half-way through their commissioning phase.
This means that mission controllers are now going through all the necessary procedures to activate the 3 scientific instruments, and one experimental technology demonstrator, aboard the orbiter, as it flies 250 kilometers (155 miles) above the Moon.
LADEE took off into space from Launch Pad 0 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, on September 7, 2013. The spacecraft successfully achieved orbital insertion around the Moon on October 6, and has been performing commissioning procedures ever since.
Built by US company Orbital Sciences Corporation, the orbiter is meant to study the lunar atmosphere and the dust masses surrounding Earth's natural satellite for roughly 100 days. It occupies a selenocentric orbit, with altitudes varying from 20 kilometers (12 miles) to 60 kilometers (37 miles).