New Moon Mission on Target
June 20th 2009 12:13
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Image Carlcan
NASA launched its first moon probe in a decade sending up a pair of unmanned science probes that will help determine where astronauts could land and set up a small space station on the moon in years to come.
Next month will mark the 40th anniversary of the first lunar footprints. The mission is a first step in NASA’s effort to return humans to the moon by 2020.
The spacecraft should reach the moon in four to five days. One probe will enter into an orbit around the moon for a mapping mission.
The other will swing past the moon and go into an elongated orbit around Earth that will put it on course to crash into a crater at the moon’s south pole in October.
NASA expects the dramatic moon-impacting part of the mission to be successful in It’s quest to determine whether frozen water is buried in one of the permanently shadowed craters. Water would be a tremendous resource for future astronauts.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will provide a high-precision, three-dimensional map of the lunar surface.
It will circle the lunar poles and, via its seven science instruments, provide a new atlas of the moon as well as a guidebook for future explorers.
It will also capture high resolution images of past NASA missions such as the Apollo landing sites thus putting an end to those conspiracy theories about the NASA landing being faked.
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Astroearth
This non-radioactive isotope is rare on earth.
The abundance of helium-3 is thought to be greater on the Moon.
Helium3 and 4 isotopes are to be used in clean fusion research.