What Will NASA’s Launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Tell Scientists About the Moon’s Environment?-July National Scene Magazine Space Article

July Space Article-National Scene Magazine

http://www.nationalscenemagazine.com/html/space.html


What Will NASA’s Launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Tell Scientists About the Moon’s Environment?

NASA, Who is Returning to the Moon with its First Lunar Launch in a Decade, Hopes to Embark on an Extraordinary Period of Discovery



Written by: Karen Benardello


NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) sent its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a robotic spacecraft, to the moon on June 18 to gather the most information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon. The spacecraft, known as the LRO, was placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles above the moon, and will embark on an unmanned one year primary mission.

LRO’s instruments will help scientists compile high resolution three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface. The mission will also survey the surface at spectral wavelengths, explore the moon’s deepest craters and provide scientists with an understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans.

“This is a very important day for NASA,” said Doug Cooke, an associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington, which designed and developed both the LRO mission, as it is also NASA’s first lunar launch to the moon in a decade. “We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions.”

LRO’s camera will use high resolution imagery to help find landing sites for future explorers and characterize the moon’s topography and composition. The hydrogen concentrations at the moon’s poles will also be mapped in detail, pinpointing the locations of possible water ice. A miniaturized radar system will also test communication capabilities.

“Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon's surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments,” said Craig Tooley, the LRO project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “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.”

All LRO initial data sets will be sent to the Planetary Data System, a publicly accessible repository of planetary science information, within six months of its launch. “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,” said Richard Vondrak, the LRO project scientist at Goddard.