![]() ![]() Scheduled for launch in 2008, LCROSS will travel to the moon as a co-manifested payload aboard the launch vehicle for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Ames will manage the mission, perform mission operations, and develop the payload instruments, while Northrop Grumman will design and build the spacecraft for this innovative mission. ![]() This is a fast-paced, low-cost, mission that will leverage some existing NASA systems, Northrop-Grumman spacecraft expertise, and Ames' Lunar Prospector spacecraft experience. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., will oversee the development of the LCROSS mission with its spacecraft and integration partner Northrop-Grumman. LCROSS will also provide technologies and modular, reconfigurable subsystems that can be used to support future mission architectures. The impact will cause an explosion of material from the crater's surface to create a plume that specialized instruments will be able to analyze for the presence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. LCROSS will blast the permanently dark floor of one of the moon's polar craters with two heavy impactors early in 2009 to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the moon. The mission objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) are to advance the Vision for Space Exploration by confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at either the moon's North or South Pole. ![]()
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