[meteorite-list] NASA Details Achievements Of Lunar Spacecraft (LRO)

[Ron Baalke]

June 21, 2011

J.D. Harrington/Michael Braukus      
Headquarters, Washington      
202-358-5241/1979 
j.d.harrington at nasa.gov/michael.braukus at nasa.gov 

Nancy Neal Jones/Elizabeth Zubritsky 
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 
301-286-0039/301-614-5438                     
nancy.n.jones at nasa.gov/elizabeth.a.zubritsky at nasa.gov   


RELEASE: 11-192

NASA DETAILS ACHIEVEMENTS OF LUNAR SPACECRAFT

WASHINGTON -- NASA has declared full mission success for the Lunar 
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). LRO changed our view of the entire moon 
and brought it into sharper focus with unprecedented detail. 

NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) operated the LRO 
spacecraft and its instruments during the one-year mission phase. Now 
that the final data from the instruments have been added to the 
agency's Planetary Data System, the mission has completed the full 
success requirements. The data system, which is publicly available, 
archives data from past and present planetary missions as well as 
astronomical observations and laboratory data. 

The rich new portrait rendered by LRO's seven instruments is the 
result of more than 192 terabytes of data, images and maps, the 
equivalent of nearly 41,000 typical DVDs. 

"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." 

The most precise and complete topographic maps to date of the moon's 
complex, heavily cratered landscape have been created from more than 
four billion measurements, which are still coming in, taken by LRO's 
Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). LOLA has taken more than 100 
times more measurements than all previous lunar instruments of its 
kind combined, opening up a world of possibilities for future 
exploration and for science. 

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) revealed stunning 
details after imaging nearly 5.7 million square kilometers of the 
moon's surface during the mission's exploration phase. That is 
roughly the same amount of land as all contiguous states west of the 
Mississippi River. Though earlier missions also imaged the moon, what 
sets LROC apart is its ability to image with surface pixels that are 
only 1.5 feet in size, small enough to distinguish details never 
before possible. 

"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. 

While studying the Hermite crater near the moon's north pole, LRO's 
Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment found the coldest spot in the 
solar system, with a temperature of minus 415 degrees Fahrenheit 
(minus 248 degrees Celsius or 25 kelvins). 

To further explore these regions, LRO's Lyman Alpha Mapping Project, 
which can "see" in the dark, is imaging the shaded areas, while 
LOLA's precise measurements map solar illumination. This work has 
provided new insight into the shadowed regions and also revealed 
areas that receive nearly continuous sun. Because sunlight itself is 
a resource on the moon, knowing there are areas that get sun for 
approximately 243 days a year and never have a period of total 
darkness for more than 24 hours is extremely valuable. 

Complementing those efforts are both the Lunar Exploration Neutron 
Detector (LEND) and the Miniature Radio Frequency advanced radar, 
which are searching for deposits of water ice. LEND also seeks 
hydrogen, which could be used potentially as fuel. LRO's Cosmic Ray 
Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is studying the lunar 
radiation environment, which is important to keep astronauts healthy 
and safe. 

LRO launched aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on 
June 18, 2009. 

The spacecraft was built and is managed by Goddard. For more 
information about LRO, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov/LRO   
	
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