On Thursday, the agency outlined the upcoming missions of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, & Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS. The spacecraft will launch together June 17 aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida...View multimedia HERE!
NASA: Image credit- Jack Pfaller
LCROSS will use the spent second stage Atlas Centaur rocket in an unprecedented way that will culminate with two spectacular impacts on the moon's surface.At Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Fla., NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, is being prepared for fairing installation. Source: NASA.gov.
Fueled, Stacked and Ready for Encapsulation... View.
NASA's return to the moon will get a boost in June with the launch of two satellites that will return a wealth of data about Earth's nearest neighbor.
Another mission of: Plan (2002-2008) has reached fruition!
TODAY: Countdown: 25 days, 21 hours, 20 min, 55 seconds!
Video: Remembering update from one year ago...
Using a suite of seven instruments, LRO will help identify safe landing sites for future human explorers, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment and test new technology. LCROSS will seek a definitive answer about the presence of water ice at the lunar poles.
LRO to Help Astronauts Survive in Infinity... VIDEOS.
"On the moon we will develop technologies to survive in space, because the moon presents the same challenges we will encounter throughout the universe." -NASA.
