LRO Mission Declared a ‘Success’
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Having a bit of a vested interest in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, due to the LROC Team being at ASU, I’m very happy to share the news that NASA has declared the mission a success.
Artist’s concept of LRO. Image Credit: NASA
Launched in June 2009, the LRO was operated by NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. Having completed its mission, the LRO data has been added to NASA’s publicly-available Planetary Data System, which is an archive of past and present missions, astronomical observations and laboratory data. Nearly 200 terabytes of data from the LRO was added to the Planetary Data System.
“LRO is now in the very capable hands of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, with ongoing, near continuous acquisition of science data,” said Douglas Cooke, associate administrator of ESMD at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Exploration will be well served by the LRO science mission, just as the LRO exploration mission has benefited lunar science.”
The primary objective of the mission was to enable safe and effective exploration of the moon. “We needed to leverage the very best the science community had to offer,” said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist of ESMD. “And by doing that, we’ve fundamentally changed our scientific understanding of the moon.”
Using its Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, the LRO has created topographic maps of the moon which are the most precise and complete maps to date of the moon’s complex and cratered surface. The LOLA instrument has taken over 100 times more measurements than all previous lunar instruments of its kind combined.
Making full use of The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera’s 1.5 foot per pixel resolution, nearly six million square kilometers of the moon’s surface was imaged, which revealed stunning details of the moon, including images of Apollo-Era landing sites ( http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/76-LROCs-First-Look-at-the-Apollo-Landing-Sites.html ).
“With this resolution, LRO could easily spot a picnic table on the moon,” said LRO’s Project Scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
During the LRO mission, the coldest known area in the solar system was discovered (-248 Celsius/25 kelvin)while studying the Hermite crater near the moon’s north pole. The discovery was made with LRO’s Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment.
Other experiments onboard LRO include the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), which enables the mapping of “shaded” areas of the moon, complimenting the LOLA instrument. These instruments have revealed areas of the moon which receive sunlight for over 240 days a year and are never dark for more than 24 hours.
In addition to LAMP and LOLA, the LRO also features the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) and the Miniature Radio Frequency advanced radar, which are searching for deposits of water ice and hydrogen. Finally, the LRO’s Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is providing data regarding radiation in the lunar environment, which will be valuable data for future manned lunar missions.
If you’d like to know more about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/LRO
You can read more about the ASU/SESE LROC Project at: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/index.html
Source:NASA/GSC Press Release
Ray Sanders is a Sci-Fi geek, astronomer and blogger. Currently researching variable stars at Arizona State University, he writes for Universe Today, The Planetary Society blog, and his own blog, Dear Astronomer
2012-12-04 08:06:15
Source: http://www.dearastronomer.com/2011/06/22/lro-mission-declared-a-success/
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