NASA BOMBS THE MOON

compiled by Dee Finney

updated 10-14-09

Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water Short on time and tight on money, a team of NASA engineers aims to solve the mystery of lunar ice in late winter—by crashing its low-budget kamikaze spacecraft into a crater.

By Michael Milstein Published in the September 2008 issue.

Northrop Grumman engineers in Redondo Beach, Calif., lower the LCROSS spacecraft into a vacuum chamber that simulates conditions in space. It will be destroyed while seeking water ice on the moon. Astronomers hate the moon.

It's so bright that it blinds telescopes like the sun in a driver's eyes. There's no atmosphere, and the geology is basically dead. Maybe that's why, decades after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked there, we have clearer maps of Mars than of our nearest neighbor.

But now, NASA needs to know more. The agency plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 12 years as the first step in establishing a permanent outpost. The base could be an ideal location for manufacturing processes best suited for low gravity, or for helium-3 mining to fuel future fusion reactors. The agency also sees the moon as the perfect construction site and launchpad for eventual manned journeys to Mars.

Water is a key ingredient in these grand schemes, because it can be broken down into oxygen for lunar bases and fuel for rockets. In 1998 a probe called Lunar Prospector spotted tantalizing signs of hydrogen in craters at the lunar poles. But no one's sure if the hydrogen is the chemical signature of water ice, possibly deposited by comets and meteors.

NASA's first step toward a moon base is the $491 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a satellite designed to map the terrain in intimate detail. In January 2006, after several years of development, LRO engineers decided to use a larger Atlas V to launch LRO, creating 2200 pounds of extra cargo capacity. The agency put out the word to its 10 research centers: What can you come up with to make use of that space—before the earliest LRO launch window in October 2008?
 

Winning a Free Ride

Dan Andrews, a rangy, plain-spoken Silicon Valley native with 21 years at NASA, reacted quickly to the call for proposals. He and other engineers from Ames Research Center near San Jose, Calif., formed what they called the Blue Ice team and met in an old Navy dorm, hoping to dream up a project that would probe the polar craters for water.

There was more at stake than proving water ice existed on the moon: "It was to get back in the game," Andrews says. Ames's aging wind tunnels and battleship-gray buildings in Silicon Valley, once hotbeds of aeronautical research, sit in the technological shadow of nearby Google and eBay. NASA has cut its programs and threatened it with closure. Now, Ames had a shot at retooling itself as a shop for fast, cheap missions.

Andrews had no budget for an expensive lander to seek water, and conditions in the eternally dark polar craters would kill rovers, with temperatures close to minus 300 F. Instead, Blue Ice and its partners at Northrop Grumman came up with a concept to bring the lunar floor out in the open. A bare-bones spacecraft, dubbed the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), would sit beneath the LRO atop the Atlas rocket. After launch, with the LRO safely bound for the moon, LCROSS would remain attached to the Atlas's spent upper-stage rocket, known as the Centaur. Using the moon's gravity, LCROSS would maneuver the Centaur—"like a VW steering a school bus," Andrews says—into an elongated orbit around Earth that assured a collision with one of the moon's poles.

Nine hours before impact, 24,000 miles above the lunar surface, LCROSS and the Centaur would separate. The 5000-pound Centaur would crash into a dark crater at twice the speed of a rifle bullet, kicking up a plume of debris more than 6 miles high. Four minutes later, the heavily instrumented LCROSS would ride the plume, checking for water and relaying data to Earth until it, too, slammed into the lunar surface.

Just three months after NASA called for proposals, LCROSS beat 18 other submissions from leading centers such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center. Now all they had to do was assemble a first-of-its-kind spacecraft at a breakneck pace (30 months) for a bargain price ($79 million). "Whatever had to happen," says Marvin Christensen, acting chief of Ames, "had to happen at warp speed for NASA."

The Cheap Frontier

The constraints imposed on the mission created skeptics. "Early on, there were a lot of stakeholders who assumed that we'd bust—either bust schedule or bust cost," says Andrews, relaxed in his office in jeans and a polo shirt. A paper model of LCROSS he built hangs on the wall, along with a congratulatory banner from his children. "If people are thinking that there's no way you can succeed, you almost can't lose," he says.

Andrews and his crew know the mission doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to work. Next door to Andrews's office, deputy LCROSS manager John Marmie has a stack of Larry the Cable Guy hats that read "Git-R-Done," which has become something of a mantra for the project. LCROSS is a low-priority, high-risk project, what NASA calls a "Class D" mission with "medium or significant risk of not achieving mission success." In other words, the agency was willing to gamble, so Andrews and his team could fly with fewer backup systems and less testing. "We're going to do a lot of this as we go on to the moon," says Scott "Doc" Horowitz, a former astronaut who until last year ran NASA's exploration division, where he gave LCROSS the green light. "I could triple the cost of the project to try to guarantee success, or I could do three projects and, even if one fails, I get more done."

Since engineering precision hardware would break the budget, the LCROSS team had to make existing components work together. The spacecraft's internal fuel tank is left over from a communications satellite. The avionics are copied from the LRO. The skeleton, an aluminum ring that looks like a section of sewer pipe with six portholes, is from an Air Force project designed to release multiple satellites from a single rocket.

Andrews and company turned the ring into their spacecraft with parts—solar panel, instruments, batteries—plugged into the ring's ports. LCROSS could spawn similar projects at Northrop. "I call it a Frankensat strategy," says Stephen Hixson, vice president of advanced concepts. "I'm not saying equipment could come from Home Depot, but pretty close."

Typically, 10 to 15 percent of a spacecraft's budget goes into instruments; on LCROSS, it's roughly 3 percent, or $2 million. When Anthony Colaprete, NASA's lead scientist for the mission, went to big aerospace companies for instruments, they laughed at his budget. So he turned to small outfits instead. He bought near-infrared spectrometers from a company that makes them for breweries to test the alcohol content of beer on assembly lines. He resisted agency reviewers who wanted him to put an anodized coating on the aluminum storage boxes. "One of their arguments was, ‘It's not very expensive—just do it,'" he says. "I'm like, ‘Well, I want to save that $1000. I'm very cheap.'"

The satellite's last moments will be tracked by the LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope and telescopes on Earth. The impact should also be visible to amateurs in the western United States using modest telescopes. Andrews's team will track its spacecraft from mission control at Ames: Simple tables stacked with personal computers.

Although the team's creation will die violently, morale is high. "People are invigorated," Andrews says. "They're leaving a little piece of themselves on the moon."

(Illustrations by Transluszent)
The mission to find water ice on the moon is being conducted by a small, six-sided monitoring spacecraft that is attached to an empty 5000-pound rocket-fuel tank called the Centaur. The spacecraft guides the tank through several elongated Earth orbits before heading to the moon, arriving three to four months after launch.

The Final Separation

The spacecraft releases the Centaur, sending it thruster-first toward a crater at the lunar pole, and then slows down. About 4 minutes later, the monitoring craft follows the same kamikaze trajectory. A light-sensitive instrument on the spacecraft helps NASA determine details of the composition of Centaur's target by measuring any flash from the vaporization of lunar material.

Riding the Plume

The Centaur's death dive creates a 16-ft.-deep crater and kicks up a 6-mile-high debris cloud. The monitor descends into this plume, using infrared spectrometers and video cameras to determine how much—if any—water ice exists. The spacecraft relays its findings to Earth until it, too, crashes. Researchers in California get results within minutes of the first impact.

Reader Comments

25. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Clarify for people what is said in the article. 1. They are not bombing or blowing up anything. They are crashing an empty rocket fuel tank into the moon, similar to crashing a school bus. No explosives involved but simple Mass times Speed equals force. 2. They are doing this on a ridiculously small budget compared to the conventional thinking and ways. 3. Have a little faith, because this recession will not last forever. Anything we learned and planned now will become useful in the future. Thinks like hydrogen fuel cells came from NASA and much more. 5. Having a moon base will cut cost significantly for future exploration to Mars. (No we cannot go to Venus; it is a giant ball of gas, maybe one of the moons from Jupiter way in the future) 4. Rockets don't use fossil fuel, but solid fuels.

24. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Everyone seems so worried about global warming and the enviorment, blameing auto, cows and just about everything the average Joe does. Cant they see that it"s mainly due to putting all the junk into the atmosphere?, and now this. The moon controls earth, what will they do next to help destroy our world?

 23. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
How about capturing a passing mail truck size meteor and guiding it back to earth and releasing it over north koreas airspace, that would be money well spent1

 22. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Short on time and tight on money? What does this have to do with exploration.I am totally against this. Blowing soemthing up in space or on our moon doesn't sound right. What about debris? If there's ice, there's water. What's the rush or point of this. Who made nasa in charge of decisions that involove OUR planet and moon. Idiots.

21. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
dear nasa i think that crashing a ship into the moon is a waste of humen resources in neal armstrong could walk on the moon im sure he can go to the moon and dig to to see if there water with out destroying equiment

20. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
dear nasa what will happen on 2012 will there be a solar eclips that will start an ice age

19. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Where gonna blow some weapon to the moon to see if there is water there? Hmmm... right. Isn't it full of craters already? Well I hope this space bomb works!

 18. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
I don't understand the arguments by people to stop spending money on research and exploration. Do you think everyone in Spain was taken care of when they sent out Columbus. Look at the effects that had on humanity. I am personally very excited to find out the results of this experiment. They have been speculating about this for years, and to finally get the answer.

17. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Why wait to see if there is some form of water on the moon before using the technology that breaks water down into oxygen and fuel? Why not do it here and now? Would there even be a future for humans on the moon if there's no forseeable residual future for humans on Earth (if the bigger crises here are not resolved or even, at least, addressed)? I'm not sure who'd agree with me, but doesn't the Earth have far more resources than the moon may ever have?

 16. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Dear NASA, are we currently planning a trip to another planet instead of mars, like say venus? Your answer will be greatly appreciated.

 15. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
HI Dear Nasa team I'm a middle schooler and our teacher told us to do a current event using phyics since that's what we're going to be studying this year and i've read your article and have to questions 1 why haven't we learned more about the moon than mars it was the first place where man went beyond our home planet. 2 is there a chance of damaging the surronding area that the cetaur is sent to crash into and the Lrcoss as well is there a chance of changing the way we look at the moon at night.

14. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Despite the title of the article, this isn't really "bombing" the moon. They're running a rocket into it to make a 16-foot-deep crater. Oh no! Things have been hitting the moon for milennia, one more small crater won't make a bit of difference. Hollywood movies (and NASA employees) have nothing to do with this, it's a legitimate scientific endeavor with possibly helpful consequences.

 13. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
I think many of you have lost your perspective on this project. This endeavor is nearly "free" in space research terms. There was extra payload space available on the LRO launch vehicle and these brilliant scientists have found a relatively inexpensive way to create meaningful data from it. It's a little akin to someone offering you a free seat on a private jet headed across the globe. If someone said, "Hey, I'll fly you anywhere you want to go, you just have to pay for whatever you bring." Wouldn't you jump at the chance and find a way to scrap a couple bucks together to make the best of it? Even though it can be difficult to sometimes make the connection, many of the comforts (and things we now deem necessities) have arrived to us through our dedication to space research. This type of work is investment for our future. Look beyond the simple purpose of the mission and into its greater meaning. This mission is about conducting science in a more cost effecient manner. Expanding our knowledge and capabilities in the most economical fashion possible.

 12. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Regarding comment 1. Wow. What a remarkably short-sighted and misinformed view of the world! First, there are no communities in the US that are living "in and below third world conditions." Welfare is 100 times the amount of money that some people live off of in some third world countries. Second, where do you think all those millions and millions are going? Into some sealed corporate vault where the CEOs sit and stare at their wealth mumbling "My Precious"? These enormous amounts of money are going to pay the salaries of real people. And what these real people don't spend buying things from other real people, are put into banks and invested in other projects that end up paying real people. Technological advancement is the most consistent way to increase the standard of living across a country. It's projects like these that inspire and and invigorate an economy and a culture.

 11. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
So when the economy is in trouble, smart scientific minds should be fired (to be hired by other countries) the high tech companies that create the equipment for these projects should lose business and instead aerospace specialists should work of getting water to towns and mortgage policy. Nice plan. Because fools who allowed poorly run banks to "trick" them into managing their money poorly, we should put all technological advancement on hold and bail out idiots. No thank you, my tax money should go to forward moving projects. Bail outs will only encourage more bad behavior - let the banks fail, let the people lose their homes. Perhaps in the future they won't burn their equity to buy SUVs and LCD TVs. And for heaven's sake - please do not reference Oprah when discussing federal policy.

 10. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Something like this was planned way back before the USA began the space race, but then they intended to really bomb,.... ..using a small A-bomb, and catching the dust in a flyby, (not moon orbital flyby) and bring it back, as back then there were no electronics to analyse the dust while in moon orbit. I think an old 50's era copy of PM mentioned it as a cover article, I have it somewhere, might dig it out later. its ironic, that we go back to an idea that old, to catch up with something with should have done with Apollo and automated landers and rovers since then because we never returned with manned landers. I disagree entirely with the first comment, as the helium 3 is interesting, that could well mean an end to the energy crisis, its no danger using it to make unlimited energy on this planet, fusion is easier with this material. Its thrown off the sun non-stop, there would plenty down here, if it was not for all that air around us. And that Helium 3 could explain, be be well worth the rush to get back, we need quantities only in the kilogram range back here, to make it worthwhile. Peter NZ

 9. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
So money will solve social ill? Giving out food will teach people to care for themselves? Billions of dollars are spent on welfare programs but the number of depends increase. Obviously throwing money at these problems doesn't help. For that matter, if Oprah can fund an expose (I would guess 100K to 200K to produce and distribute) why didn't Oprah just step in and fund a clean water source? And why is it the government's responsibility to solve our problems? It is not. It is our responsibility.

8. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Don't they think about asking the rest of the world about the idea? It does look like NASA has the full right to bomb anything they want. Moon isn't just their property and no matter how clever they are this is a little bit too much. NASA has to stop showing their employees hollywood movies (i e Armagedon )

 7. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
i agree like who cares about mars lets worrie about our dieing plantet first, its not like we have another one out back.

 6. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Because the hundreds of billions we've spent in Iraq / Afghanistan have been well worth it. For anyone who feels that spending money on space travel and exploration is wasted money, consider how much useful information and invention has moved from NASA (and their contractors) into the consumers hands. Also consider that we might be able to find new power sources (helium-3), which will be needed in the upcoming decades.

5. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Yeah I am not really buying the whole helium-3 deal. If we already have it, just spend money on breaking down what you already have. Please do not spend multi-billions of dollars, trying to find it, and then not know what to do with it, once you have it. This could probably be the next reason why gas prices will sky rocket next year. (Get it, you need, a rocket, to get to the moon. I liked it)

 4. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
This is a ridiculous venture in these times of economic strife. For at a time when our government should be tightening the belts on waste; These times of unnecessary spending, our government is spending millions upon millions funding multi billion dollar corporations to crash into and bomb the moon!?!?!? - and for what - to find water!?!?! How about finding water for the numerous communities here in America, that are living in and below third world conditions, without even basic clean, safe, running water! SEE Oprahs' and Anderson Coopers' Exposee on America. Talk about our politicians running a muck, our government being broken, and out of touch, with these corporate welfare programs and pork barrel spending. Wuuuuoooeeew, For we should be at least putting a 5 year moratorium on these unnecessary spending programs for the purpose of trying, trying to get our national infrastructure and financial houses in basic order. Our government, for the corporation, by the corporation, to the corporation

 3. will this be visible from earth?
Will this six mile high plume be visible with the naked eye?

 2. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Website: http://www.misterinfo.de/users/erichansa
I wonder if the explosion will be visible from Earth.

 1. RE: Inside NASA's Plan to Bomb the Moon and Find Water
Website: http://free-xbox-360-elite-free.blogspot.com
I hope for the best and hope that this mission will not end without some sort of discovery. Plus, this sounds like a cool and unique way to look for water. They should find a way to televise it.

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FROM: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4277592.html?page=3

June 18, 2009 4:14 PM PDT

Atlas 5 rocket launches NASA moon mission

by William Harwood

An Atlas 5 rocket thundered to life and streaked into space Thursday, hurling two NASA spacecraft toward the moon for a $583 million mission to scout out landing sites for future manned missions and to search for evidence of hidden ice near its frigid poles.

One spacecraft will map the cratered surface from a perilously low 31-mile-high orbit while the other will blast out 350 tons of pulverized rock and soil for chemical analysis, digging a shallow 66-foot-wide crater in a kamikaze crash visible from Earth.

"First, we want to identify safe landing sites," said project scientist Rich Vondrak. "Then, we want to search for resources on the moon. And finally, we want to get better insight into the space radiation environment and how it may be harmful to humans."

Delayed 20 minutes by nearby thunderstorms, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket's RD-180 first stage engine ignited at 5:32 p.m., slowly pushing the towering rocket away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

An Atlas 5 rocket takes off on a NASA mission to scout out lunar landing sites and to search for hidden ice near the moon's poles.

(Credit: United Launch Alliance)

Spectacular rocket cam views showed the Atlas 5's fiery exhaust plume against the cloud-draped limb of planet Earth and the deep black of space. Another camera showed the nose cone fairing falling away, exposing the satellite payload to view.

Two firings by the Atlas 5's hydrogen-fueled Centaur second stage successfully boosted the dual-spacecraft payload onto a four-day trajectory to the moon.

The $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, equipped with seven state-of-the-art cameras and other instruments, will look for suitable landing sites for future manned missions while creating the most detailed lunar atlas ever assembled.

The 4,200-pound solar-powered spacecraft also will measure the solar and cosmic radiation that future lunar explorers will face and map out the surface topology, mineralogy and chemical composition of Earth's nearest neighbor. One year will be spent scouting future landing sites followed by three years of purely scientific observations.

While its cameras will not be able to detect the footprints of the 12 Apollo astronauts who once walked on the moon, they will be able to see the landing stages, rovers and other equipment that were left behind.

LRO's companion, the $79 million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, faces a much shorter lifetime. With LRO on its own, LCROSS will maneuver the spent Atlas 5's Centaur second stage into a looping four-month orbit back around the Earth.

If all goes well, LCROSS will aim itself and the Centaur back at the moon, targeting a permanently shadowed crater near the south pole for a dramatic crash landing October 9. With LRO looking on from lunar orbit, the 5,000-pound Centaur will hit the dark surface at some 5,600 mph, blasting out a 66-foot-wide crater some 13 feet deep.

The debris excavated by the impact will be blown high above the lunar surface, some of it above the crater's rim and into sunlight for the first time in 2 billion years or more.

LCROSS, following close behind the Centaur on a virtually identical course, will fly through the debris cloud, spending four precious minutes studying the composition of the material and looking for signs of water ice with a suite of nine instruments.

Then it, too, will crash to the moon less than 2 miles away after dutifully transmitting its data back to Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope will monitor the impact, as will amateur and professional astronomers in the Western hemisphere, looking for the flash that will signal the Centaur's demise.

The LRO/LCROSS mission is NASA's first trip to the moon since the more modest Lunar Prospector was launched in 1998. The new missions are part of NASA's post-Columbia program to send astronauts back to the moon to establish a permanent Antarctica-style research station starting around 2020.

The Bush administration approved the new plan and President Obama endorsed the resumption of moon flights during his campaign.

But earlier this year, the White House Office of Management and Budget cut $3.1 billion from NASA's projected budgets through 2013--money needed to begin development of a heavy-life moon rocket--and the president ordered an independent re-assessment of NASA's long-range goals.

The review panel held its first public hearing Wednesday and its final report is expected by the end of the summer.

Regardless of the ultimate fate of NASA's manned moon program, the two spacecraft launched Thursday promise to greatly advance understanding of the moon's history and evolution, along with making the first serious attempt to identify favorable landing sites for future long-duration visits.

A 'rocket cam' view of the Atlas 5's first stage exhaust plume during the climb to space.

(Credit: NASA TV)

Separating from the LCROSS/Centaur shortly after launch, LRO will fly to the moon on its own. After a long rocket firing Tuesday morning to brake into an elliptical orbit, engineers will spend up to two months checking out and calibrating the spacecraft's instruments and maneuvering it into a circular 31-mile-high orbit.

For comparison, the orbits used by Apollo command modules were about 70 miles high.

"As its name says, LRO is all about doing reconnaissance at the moon," said Craig Tooley, the mission's project manager at Goddard. "Reconnaissance, specifically, to bring us back the data and the information we need to plan and execute the human return to the moon.

"An inevitable question I get is 'why do we need LRO? Haven't we done this?' And, indeed, of course, we've been to the moon. But when we went to the moon for Apollo, we went to the equatorial regions and we intentionally planned to not stay for very long.

And even at the onset of our renewed commitment to send human beings to the moon back in 2004, we knew then if we were going to go to the moon with the more ambitious goals we have now of staying longer and perhaps establishing outposts, we were going to go to a different place."

Scientists and engineers thinking about future outposts on the moon are focused on the polar regions, where areas in permanent sunlight offer unlimited solar power. Conversely, permanently shadowed craters nearby offer the prospect of ice deposits and along with them, a source of water, oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel.

"We actually have much better maps of Mars than we have of our own moon's polar regions," Tooley said. "So the job of filling out that information set, making that atlas complete for planning safe and fruitful return to the moon, that job fell to LRO."

The LCROSS mission is much more tightly focused.

Earlier lunar probes detected indirect evidence of water ice in dark polar regions. Scientists believe ice could indeed be trapped in polar craters that never see sunlight, brought in by comet impacts over the billions of years since the moon's formation.

The Centaur impact is designed to blast out material in the top few feet of a shadowed crater's floor where ice deposits are suspected.

"There's data out there which could show it's potentially ice rinks," said LCROSS project manager Dan Andrews. "There's data out there that shows it's blocky. There's data out there that could support the fact that there might not be water ice there," said Dan Andrews, the LCROSS project manager. "So that illustrates the importance of this mission. Let's go see what it is.

"The benefit of having water ice there is self-evident. The availability of water right there on the moon, availability of producing oxygen, oxidizer for rocket fuel for other missions, it's very, very interesting if water ice is indeed there."

William Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He has covered more than 115 shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune, and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of "Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia."

From: EXOPOLITICS.COM <exopolitics@exopolitics..com>
Subject: EXAMINER: NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar ET/UFO civilizations
To: exopolitics@exopolitics.com
Date: Friday, June 19, 2009, 8:48 PM

NASA moon bombing violates space law & may cause conflict with lunar extraterrestrial civilizations

Alfred Lambremont Webre
 Seattle Exopolitics Examiner


NASA: LCROSS bombing of Moon, Oct. 9, 2009 (Depic)
 
The planned October 9, 2009 bombing of the moon by a NASA orbiter that will bomb the moon with a 2-ton kinetic weapon to create a 5 mile wide deep crater as an alleged water-seeking and lunar colonization experiment, is contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies.  The NASA moon bombing, a component of the LCROSS mission, may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.  

If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject.  The U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S. has ratified, requires that “ The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.”  98 nations have ratified and 125 nations have signed the U.N. Outer Space Treaty.

Continues at: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2912-Seattle-Exopolitics-Examiner~y2009m6d19-NASA-moon-bombing-violates-space-law--may-cause-conflict-with-lunar-extraterrestrial-civilizations

Nasa prepares to bomb the moon

Nasa scientists are preparing to launch a space mission from Cape Canaveral carrying a missile that will fire a hole deep in the surface of the moon.

By Ben Leach
Published: 8:36AM BST 18 Jun 2009

The aim is to see whether any traces of water will be revealed by the disruption caused to the planet's surface. Nasa will analyse the space cloud caused by the explosion for any sign of water or vapour.

Scientists expect the impact to blast out a huge cloud of dust, gas and vaporized water ice at least 6 miles high - making it visible from Earth.

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If the search is successful it could provide vital supplies for a moonbase. The moon is mostly dry desert but ice may be trapped in craters which never see sunlight.

The unmanned Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite mission (LCROSS) will fire a Centaur rocket into the surface at twice the speed of a bullet.

An accompanying spacecraft will orbit the moon for a year looking for possible landing sites for astronauts. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will spend at least a year creating the most minutely detailed map of the moon's surface ever seen.

The vessel swill be the first American spacecrafts to make a lunar trip since 1999.

Astronomers have long thought that a rain of comets brought water to the arid, lifeless moon over billions of years.

In the past few years, at least two American spacecraft reported the presence of water by detecting hints of hydrogen and oxygen - the constituents of water - frozen deep in the darkest recesses of craters around both the north and south lunar poles.

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5566137/Nasa-prepares-to-bomb-the-moon.html

08/31/09 01:10 AM ET

LCROSS Mission on Track Despite Propellant Binge

By Space News Staff

A navigation glitch that caused NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) to consume more than half of its propellent over the weekend should not prevent the novel spacecraft from crashing into the Moon this October as planned.

Designed by Redondo Beach, Calif.-based Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, the $80 million LCROSS was launched June 18 with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter atop an Atlas 5 rocket. The spacecraft’s primary mission is to search for water on the Moon by transmitting data and images of debris plumes that will occur when the spacecraft’s spent upper-stage Centaur rocket crashes into the lunar surface Oct. 9.

NASA officials say the LCROSS mission remains on track, despite the anomaly discovered Aug. 22 by NASA’s mission operations team at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

“[LCROSS] does have enough fuel to complete its mission,” NASA spokesman Grey Huataluoma said Aug. 26.

According to spacecraft data, a problem with the probe’s inertial reference unit, a sensor used for attitude control and vehicle orientation, caused the spacecraft’s thruster to fire excessively, draining an estimated 100 kilograms to 140 kilograms of onboard propellant, according to Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Sally Koris.

Since then the operations team at NASA Ames took steps to restart the spacecraft’s inertial reference unit and reduce fuel consumption to a nominal level. Procedures also were implemented to minimize the possibility of another anomaly occurring while the spacecraft is out of contact with the ground. Since the restart, the inertial sensor has not experienced any additional problems, according to information available on NASA’s LCROSS Web site.

The team is continuing to investigate the root cause of the problem with LCROSS manufacturers, but mission managers are optimistic that the probe will reach its planned impact at the lunar south pole, currently set for 7:30 a.m. EDT Oct. 9. The impact is expected to create a plume of debris that will expose any water ice, hydrocarbons or organics to sunlight, at which point they will vaporize, breaking down into basic components that can be monitored by the LCROSS spacecraft before it, too, crashes into the lunar surface.

The debris cloud also is expected to be visible from Earth by amateur astronomers with telescopes as small as 25.4 centimeters to 30.5 centimeters in diameter.

NASA LRO - LCROSS Satellite to enter Moons Orbit on Tuesday

10-06-00 - No sunspots today

Current conditions

Solar wind
speed: 363.0 km/sec
density: 0.1 protons/cm3
 explanation | more data
Updated: Today at 1155 UT

X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A0 1145 UT Oct06
24-hr: A0 1145 UT Oct06
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 1145 UT

FINDING GROUND ZERO: If you plan to watch this Friday's lunar impact through a backyard telescope, start practicing now. Pinpointing Cabeus among so many other craters around the lunar south pole isn't easy. David Evans of Coleshill, UK, found the impact site on Oct. 3rd using his Meade 8-inch telescope:


 

One way to know you've found the right crater: It'll be the one with an fluffy plume on Friday morning. Mission scientists expect debris from the double-impact of LCROSS and its booster rocket to rise about 7 kilometers over the rim of Cabeus. There will be two plumes, one from the booster rocket (4:30 am PDT) and another from the LCROSS mothership (4:34 am PDT). Each is expected to linger in sunlight for 60 to 90 seconds before falling back into the shadowy depths of Cabeus. The surface brightness of the plumes should be similar to that of surrounding sunlit terrain.

More Lunar Impact Resources:

October 5, 2009: Just imagine. A spaceship plunges out of the night sky, hits the ground and explodes. A plume of debris billows back into the heavens, leading your eye to a second ship in hot pursuit. Four minutes later, that one hits the ground, too. It's raining spaceships!

Put on your hard hat and get ready for action, because on Friday, Oct. 9th, what you just imagined is really going to happen--and you can have a front row seat.

A computer visualization of LCROSS hitting the Moon on Oct. 9th. Credit: NASA/Ames

The impact site is crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole. NASA is guiding the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite ("LCROSS" for short) and its Centaur booster rocket into the crater's floor for a spectacular double-impact designed to "unearth" signs of lunar water.

There are two ways to watch the show.

First, turn on NASA TV. The space agency will broadcast the action live from the Moon, with coverage beginning Friday morning at 3:15 am PDT (10:15 UT). The first hour or so, pre-impact, will offer expert commentary, status reports from mission control, camera views from the spacecraft, and telemetry-based animations.
 

The actual impacts commence at 4:30 am PDT (11:30 UT). The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.

Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.

"If there's water there, or anything else interesting, we'll find it," says Tony Colaprete of NASA Ames, the mission's principal investigator.

Above: The lunar south pole as it will appear on the night of impact. Photo Credit - NMSU / MSFC Tortugas Observatory.

Next comes the mothership's own plunge. Four minutes after the Centaur "lands," the 700 kg LCROSS satellite will strike nearby, sending another, smaller debris plume over the rim of Cabeus.

The Hubble Space Telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and hundreds of telescopes great and small on Earth will scrutinize the two plumes, looking for signs of water and the unexpected.

And that brings us to the second way to see the show: Grab your telescope.

"We expect the debris plumes to be visible through mid-sized backyard telescopes—10 inches and larger," says Brian Day of NASA/Ames. Day is an amateur astronomer and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for LCROSS. "The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater's rim to be seen from Earth."

The Pacific Ocean and western parts of North America are favored with darkness and a good view of the Moon at the time of impact. Hawaii is the best place to be, with Pacific coast states of the USA a close second. Any place west of the Mississippi River, however, is a potential observing site.

Right: The side of Earth facing the Moon at the time of impact. [larger image] [observing tips]

When the plumes emerge from Cabeus, they will be illuminated by sunshine streaming over the polar terrain. The crater itself will be in the dark, however, permanently shadowed by its own walls. "That's good," says Day. "The crater's shadows will provide a dark backdrop for viewing the sunlit plumes."

In an earlier stage of mission planning, scientists hoped to strike a crater closer to the Moon's limb so that the plumes would billow out against the dark night sky, providing maximum contrast for observers on Earth. However, recent data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Japan's Kaguya spacecraft and India's Chandrayaan-1 probe altered those plans.

"We've just learned that Cabeus may contain relatively-rich deposits of hydrogen and/or frozen water," says Colaprete. "Cabeus is not as close to the lunar limb as we would have liked, but it seems to offer us the best chance of hitting H2O."

The LCROSS team hopes many people—amateurs and professionals alike—will observe and photograph the plumes. "The more eyes the better," says Day. "Remember, we've never done this before. We're not 100% sure what will happen, and big surprises are possible."

Public Viewing Events List

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/impact/event_index.html

Veteran amateur astronomer Kurt Fisher has prepared a 13 MB slideshow to help fellow amateurs locate and witness the plumes: download it . There is also an online LCROSS observer's group where novices can read introductory articles and chat with other observers.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for citizen scientists to join NASA in the process of discovery," says Day, who urges observers to submit their images to the LCROSS Citizen Science Site. "It's a great adventure, and anyone can participate."

Imagine that.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

 
Submitted by Dusty Rhodes on June 21, 2009 - 11:01am. |
NASA LRO - LCROSS Satellite to enter Moons Orbit on Tuesday

see video below

[Best Syndication News] The Atlas V rocket was launched on June 18th carrying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS) towards the moon. Both the LRO and the LCROSS are being implemented to gather information for future astronaut manned missions on the Moon.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is scheduled to reach the moon's orbit on June 23rd at 5:43 A.M. EDT. The LRO will have traveled over 360,000 kilometers to reach the Moon's orbit.

The purpose of the LRO is t

To orbit around the moon and to further study areas for future landing sites for astronauts. The satellite will also gather more information about the moon's environment. It will be only 31 miles above the moon's surface and will be orbiting the moon for one year time period. The LRO has seven measuring instruments that will be able to create a 3D map of the moon's surface in high resolution. These instruments will not be turned on initially but should start be seeing the images by next month.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft (LCROSS) has a portion of it that is empty that will be directed for a shaded crater for impact on the moon's surface to see if there is any evidence of water on the poles. The Lunar Prospector Spacecraft found evidence of water ice in the permanently dark shaded areas near the moon's poles. The LCROSS will be attached to the rocket for the next four months. In the end, the LCROSS is intended to crash into the moon at some point.

The goal of NASA is to set up a Lunar outpost for astronauts by the year 2020. There they hope to have a research facility that astronauts will have living quarters to stay at.

By: Dusty Rhodes

 
FEATURE

NASA Selects Target Crater for Lunar Impact

 09.11.2009

 
 

Sept. 11, 2009: NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is racing toward a double-impact on the moon at 7:30 am EDT on Oct. 9th. Today NASA announced exactly where the crash will take place.

The target crater is Cabeus A. It was selected after an extensive review of the best places to excavate frozen water at the lunar south pole.

Craters of interest around the lunar south pole. LCROSS is targeting Cabeus A. Image credit: NMSU/MSFC Tortugas Observatory.

"The selection of Cabeus A was a result of a vigorous debate within the lunar science community. We reviewed the latest data from Earth-based observatories and our fellow lunar missions Kaguya, Chandrayaan-1, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter," says Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principle investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center. "The team is looking forward to wealth of information this unique mission will produce."

LCROSS will search for ice by plunging its spent upper-stage Centaur rocket into the permanent shadows of Cabeus A, where water might be trapped in frozen form. The LCROSS satellite will then fly into the plume of debris kicked up by the impact and measure the properties of the plume before it also collides with the lunar surface.

The LCROSS team selected Cabeus A based on a set of conditions that includes favorable illumination of the debris plume for visibility from Earth, where astronomers will be watching closely. Cabeus A also has a high concentration of hydrogen (a constituent of water, H2O) and favorable terrain such as a flat floor, gentle slopes and the absence of large boulders.

Professional astronomers will use many of Earth's most capable observatories to monitor the impacts. These observatories include the Infrared Telescope Facility and Keck telescope in Hawaii; the Magdalena Ridge and Apache Ridge Observatories in New Mexico and the MMT Observatory in Arizona; the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope; and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, among others.

Amateur astronomers can monitor the impact, too. Observing tips may be found here.

"Telescopes participating in the LCROSS Observation Campaign will provide observations from different vantage points using different types of measurement techniques," says Jennifer Heldmann, lead for the LCROSS Observation Campaign at Ames. "These multiple observations will complement the LCROSS spacecraft data to help determine whether or not water ice exists in Cabeus A."

During a media briefing Sept. 11, Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames, provided a mission status update: The spacecraft is healthy and has enough fuel to successfully accomplish all mission objectives. Andrews also announced the dedication of the LCROSS mission to the memory of legendary news anchor, Walter Cronkite, who provided coverage of NASA's missions from the beginning of America's manned space program to the age of the space shuttle.

Right: The LCROSS mission has been dedicated to the memory of Walter Cronkite, who covered NASA missions from Mercury through the space shuttle. Image credit: CBS News. [more]

"Dad would sure be proud to be part, if just in name, of getting humans back up to the moon and beyond," says Chip Cronkite, son of the famed news anchor.

"We're looking forward to October 9th," Andrews says. "The next 28 days will undoubtedly be very exciting."

Cabeus A, here we come!

NASA RELEASES PHOTOS - 9-18-09

Figure 6: This mosaic shows altitude measurements from the LOLA instrument. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Figure 7: This image shows a LOLA profile of Shackleton crater. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

There are videos you can watch on this page:  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/south_pole.html

FINDING GROUND ZERO: If you plan to watch this Friday's lunar impact through a backyard telescope, start practicing now. Pinpointing Cabeus among so many other craters around the lunar south pole isn't easy. David Evans of Coleshill, UK, found the impact site on Oct. 3rd using his Meade 8-inch telescope:


 

One way to know you've found the right crater: It'll be the one with an fluffy plume on Friday morning. Mission scientists expect debris from the double-impact of LCROSS and its booster rocket to rise about 7 kilometers over the rim of Cabeus. There will be two plumes, one from the booster rocket (4:30 am PDT) and another from the LCROSS mothership (4:34 am PDT). Each is expected to linger in sunlight for 60 to 90 seconds before falling back into the shadowy depths of Cabeus. The surface brightness of the plumes should be similar to that of surrounding sunlit terrain.

More Lunar Impact Resources:

October 5, 2009: Just imagine. A spaceship plunges out of the night sky, hits the ground and explodes. A plume of debris billows back into the heavens, leading your eye to a second ship in hot pursuit. Four minutes later, that one hits the ground, too. It's raining spaceships!

Put on your hard hat and get ready for action, because on Friday, Oct. 9th, what you just imagined is really going to happen--and you can have a front row seat.

A computer visualization of LCROSS hitting the Moon on Oct. 9th. Credit: NASA/Ames

The impact site is crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole. NASA is guiding the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite ("LCROSS" for short) and its Centaur booster rocket into the crater's floor for a spectacular double-impact designed to "unearth" signs of lunar water.

There are two ways to watch the show.

First, turn on NASA TV. The space agency will broadcast the action live from the Moon, with coverage beginning Friday morning at 3:15 am PDT (10:15 UT). The first hour or so, pre-impact, will offer expert commentary, status reports from mission control, camera views from the spacecraft, and telemetry-based animations.

The actual impacts commence at 4:30 am PDT (11:30 UT). The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.

Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.

"If there's water there, or anything else interesting, we'll find it," says Tony Colaprete of NASA Ames, the mission's principal investigator.

Above: The lunar south pole as it will appear on the night of impact. Photo Credit - NMSU / MSFC Tortugas Observatory.

Next comes the mothership's own plunge. Four minutes after the Centaur "lands," the 700 kg LCROSS satellite will strike nearby, sending another, smaller debris plume over the rim of Cabeus.

The Hubble Space Telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and hundreds of telescopes great and small on Earth will scrutinize the two plumes, looking for signs of water and the unexpected.

And that brings us to the second way to see the show: Grab your telescope.

"We expect the debris plumes to be visible through mid-sized backyard telescopes—10 inches and larger," says Brian Day of NASA/Ames. Day is an amateur astronomer and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for LCROSS. "The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater's rim to be seen from Earth."

The Pacific Ocean and western parts of North America are favored with darkness and a good view of the Moon at the time of impact. Hawaii is the best place to be, with Pacific coast states of the USA a close second. Any place west of the Mississippi River, however, is a potential observing site.

 The side of Earth facing the Moon at the time of impact. [larger image] [observing tips]

When the plumes emerge from Cabeus, they will be illuminated by sunshine streaming over the polar terrain. The crater itself will be in the dark, however, permanently shadowed by its own walls. "That's good," says Day. "The crater's shadows will provide a dark backdrop for viewing the sunlit plumes."

In an earlier stage of mission planning, scientists hoped to strike a crater closer to the Moon's limb so that the plumes would billow out against the dark night sky, providing maximum contrast for observers on Earth. However, recent data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Japan's Kaguya spacecraft and India's Chandrayaan-1 probe altered those plans.

"We've just learned that Cabeus may contain relatively-rich deposits of hydrogen and/or frozen water," says Colaprete. "Cabeus is not as close to the lunar limb as we would have liked, but it seems to offer us the best chance of hitting H2O."

The LCROSS team hopes many people—amateurs and professionals alike—will observe and photograph the plumes. "The more eyes the better," says Day. "Remember, we've never done this before. We're not 100% sure what will happen, and big surprises are possible."

Public Viewing Events List

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/impact/event_index.html

Veteran amateur astronomer Kurt Fisher has prepared a 13 MB slideshow to help fellow amateurs locate and witness the plumes: download it . There is also an online LCROSS observer's group where novices can read introductory articles and chat with other observers.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for citizen scientists to join NASA in the process of discovery," says Day, who urges observers to submit their images to the LCROSS Citizen Science Site. "It's a great adventure, and anyone can participate."

Imagine that.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

LCROSS Centaur Impact Flash
Credit: NASA, LCROSS Mission Team

Explanation: This mid-infrared image was taken in the last minutes of the LCROSS flight mission to the Moon. The small white spot (enlarged in the insets) seen within the dark shadow of lunar crater walls is the initial flash created by the impact of a spent Centaur upper stage rocket. Traveling at 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur rocket hit the lunar surface yesterday at 4:31am UT, followed a few minutes later by the shepherding LCROSS spacecraft. Earthbound observatories have reported capturing both impacts. But before crashing into the lunar surface itself, the LCROSS spacecraft's instrumentation successfully recorded close-up the details of the rocket stage impact, the resulting crater, and debris cloud. In the coming weeks, data from the challenging mission will be used to search for signs of water in the lunar material blasted from the surface.

Even without big explosions or bright plumes of ejecta, for all intents and purposes it appears LCROSS's impact on the Moon was a smashing success. While the mainstream media and the public seemed disappointed in the lack of visual data, mission managers said the mission has garnered plenty of spectroscopic data, and that's where the real science can be found. "There was an impact and we saw the crater with spectroscopic data," said LCROSS principal investigator Tony Colaprete. "We have the data we need to address the questions we set out to answer." The big question is whether the impact kicked up any signatures of water ice, but it could take days, weeks or months to analyze all the data.

Initial video and images from the event – taken by LCROSS itself and a wide variety of space- and ground-based telescopes – did not show much as far as a visible impact or the anticipated ejecta plume.

Was that a surprise to the science team? "I guess I'm not necessarily surprised," said Colaprete. "Impacting the Moon is tricky business, and you learn to expect what you're not going to expect. I'm not convinced we haven't seen the ejecta. I want to go back to images and look at them carefully. We've had just 15-20 minutes of our efforts so far with images. So stay tuned. I certainly hope we can dig something out that will be telling. Our emphasis was on the spectra, that's where the information is."
 

Just two and a half hours after impact, mission managers spent most of Friday morning's press conference explaining how little chance they had to look at the data – and that they wouldn't even approach the topic of whether water had been detected yet — and how the impact doesn't end the mission. "This is just the beginning," said Michael Wargo, NASA's chief lunar scientist. "We've got an enormous amount of data, not only from LCROSS from assets around the world. This is going to change the way we look at the Moon scientifically and change the way we do future exploration."

High praise was given to the operations and observation campaign teams, as well as the spacecraft itself. "I'm happy to report spacecraft performed beautifully and the operations team did very well," said Dan Andrews, LCROSS Project Manager. "It takes awhile to comb through the data to make sure we are reporting accurate and correct data, but we wanted to give you all an update on how things went."

Here's what they know so far:

They saw a flash at impact with the near infrared camera on LCROSS, and were able to see that an impact occurred, and even see the crater itself. "We had a very good high signal to noise data on the LCROSS spectrometer, probably the highest we could hope for," said Colaprete. "The fact that we saw a remnant crater and that we got data as far down as we did, it's very promising. Just on my initial eyeballing, the crater looked to be about the size we were predicting; about 18-20 feet or more. It filled a whole pixel of the camera."

The cameras worked very well and we were able to track the Centaur all the way to the end of the mission" Colaprete continued, and then addressed a possible reason why the ejecta plume wasn't more visible. "There was a flicker from the Centaur that might have been from a tumbling action. We wanted to avoid a perfectly end-on or perfectly flat impact, and it's possible that happened. But we have the information we can go back now and look at everything."

This image was taken by the Palomar Observatory at the time of impact. Credit: Palomar Observatory

Data from several other spacecraft and telescopes were just starting to trickle in, as well.

On the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was observing the impact event from lunar orbit, the LAMP instrument (UV spectrometer) and the Diviner instrument (imaging radiometer) confirmed detection of the ejecta plume. The LRO teams have begun analyzing their data.

The Hubble Space Telescope also observed the event, but not in visible light. "HST was highly focused on spectroscopy, which is where the science is," Colaprete said. "HST cannot look at the moon except for the very narrow filters because it is so bright. It took long integration stares just off to the side of the Moon."

Other assets observing the event included IKONOS, GeoEye 1, ODIN — a Swedish radio telescope – all in Earth orbit, and Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, the Palomar Observatory and MMTO.

Jennifer Heldmann who led the LCROSS observation campaign described some of the data obtained by a all the different telescopes and spacecraft: "We have images, we have video, we have graphs with squiggly lines, which scientists love."

One surprise is that in the initial data, sodium was seen in the spectroscopic data, and Colaprete said sodium exists in the Moon's tenuous atmosphere called the exosphere, and perhaps something got thermalized during the impact excite the sodium atoms to where strong visible emission lines showed up in the data.

Other "blips" in the data showed up, and while Colaprete said he couldn't say what they meant, he was just glad there were there.

"As of now, this has just been a real-time mission," he said. "We laid it all out there by having streaming video, but here we are at 2 hours. Our primary objective was finding out about the hydrogen that's been observed at the lunar poles, and honestly, our initial visual images didn’t answer that question. But the answers are in the spectra and we've got something there. It could be days, weeks, or months until we can give you an answer. We’ll look at data, scratch our heads, fight over who gets to look at which data, and hopefully from that we can make a public announcement of what we've found."

Source: LCROSS press conference.

Filed under: Missions, Moon

NASA Spacecraft Impacts Lunar Crater in Search for Water Ice
 
 
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, created twin impacts on the moon's surface early Friday in a search for water ice. Scientists will analyze data from the spacecraft's instruments to assess whether water ice is present.

The satellite traveled 5.6 million miles during an historic 113-day mission that ended in the Cabeus crater, a permanently shadowed region near the moon's south pole. The spacecraft was launched June 18 as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"The LCROSS science instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The team is excited to dive into data."

In preparation for impact, LCROSS and its spent Centaur upper stage rocket separated about 54,000 miles above the surface of the moon on Thursday at approximately 6:50 p.m. PDT.

Moving at a speed of more than 1.5 miles per second, the Centaur hit the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m.

"This is a great day for science and exploration," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The LCROSS data should prove to be an impressive addition to the tremendous leaps in knowledge about the moon that have been achieved in recent weeks. I want to congratulate the LCROSS team for their tremendous achievement in development of this low cost spacecraft and for their perseverance through a number of difficult technical and operational challenges."‪

Other observatories reported capturing both impacts. The data will be shared with the LCROSS science team for analysis. The LCROSS team expects it to take several weeks of analysis before it can make a definitive assessment of the presence or absence of water ice.

"I am very proud of the success of this LCROSS mission team," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames. "Whenever this team would hit a roadblock, it conceived a clever work-around allowing us to push forward with a successful mission."

The images and video collected by the amateur astronomer community and the public also will be used to enhance our knowledge about the moon.

"One of the early goals of the mission was to get as many people to look at the LCROSS impacts in as many ways possible, and we succeeded," said Jennifer Heldmann, Ames' coordinator of the LCROSS observation campaign. "The amount of corroborated information that can be pulled out of this one event is fascinating."

"It has been an incredible journey since LCROSS was selected in April 2006," said Andrews. "The LCROSS Project faced a very ambitious schedule and an uncommonly small budget for a mission of this size. LCROSS could be a model for how small robotic missions are executed. This is truly big science on a small budget."

For more information about the LCROSS mission, including images and video, visit:

 
http://www.nasa.gov/lcross

 
MYSTERY OF THE MISSING PLUMES: NASA scientists are grappling with a mystery. Where did the debris go? Last Friday morning, Oct. 9th, the water-seeking LCROSS spacecraft and its Centaur booster rocket crashed into the floor of crater Cabeus near the Moon's south pole, on time and on target. But the debris plumes that were supposed to issue from the impacts failed to materialize. Consider this image recorded 15 seconds after the Centaur impact by the Palomar Observatory's 200-inch Hale telescope:


Click to view a 12-minute mpg movie.

Cabeus crater is located in the center, behind the large bright mountain. Plumes of shattered spacecraft and lunar soil should have emerged into sunlight from the shadows, but even Palomar's sensitive adaptive optics system registered nothing.

The absence of debris plumes does not mean LCROSS was a failure. On the contrary, by offering up the unexpected, LCROSS is teaching us something new about the lunar surface and the products of lunar impacts. That makes it, by definition, a successful experiment. All that remains is to figure out what the new information is. Researchers will be announcing their findings in the days and weeks ahead.

 
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June 16, 2009 5:24 PM PDT

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