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

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:48:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201106220048.p5M0mlJP026062_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

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
        
-end-
Received on Tue 21 Jun 2011 08:48:47 PM PDT