DTN News: Northrop Grumman-Built LCROSS Satellite Impacts Moon

DTN News: Northrop Grumman-Built LCROSS Satellite Impacts Moon

*Source: DTN News / Northrop Grumman (NSI News Source Info) REDONDO BEACH, Calif., - October 10, 2009: Astronomers and space enthusiasts worldwide cheered as the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) successfully impacted the moon's Cabeus crater October 9., at 4:31 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. LCROSS was built and integrated by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) under contract to NASA Ames Research Center. The dramatic impact represents the end of a 112-day mission to find water ice on the moon that could serve as a resource for future lunar outposts. According to NASA, the debris cloud created by LCROSS' impact produced good telemetry and was recorded by space and ground-based observatories. NASA will gather and analyze impact data from professional and amateur astronomers worldwide over the next several months to determine if water ice is present. "The success of this mission is a tribute to the tremendous engineering skills and partnership between Northrop Grumman and NASA Ames Research Center," said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts-Space and Directed Energy Systems for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "We believe LCROSS will open the doors to new research and exploration missions based on the LCROSS model." Built on a tight budget and schedule, LCROSS uses a standardized structural element; commercial-off-the-shelf hardware, sensors and components; flight-proven payload instruments and sophisticated risk management. The spacecraft was ready for delivery in just 29 months for a total mission cost of $79 million. Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

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~Read More About LCROSS LCROSS Video

DTN News: NASA Successfully Launches Lunar Impactor

DTN News: NASA Successfully Launches Lunar Impactor

*Source: NASA

(NSI News Source Info) MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - June 21, 2009: NASA successfully launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, Thursday June 18, 2009 on a mission to search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon's south pole. The Mission Objectives of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) include confirming the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s South Pole. The identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon. LCROSS will excavate the permanently dark floor of one of the Moon’s polar craters with two heavy impactors in 2009 to test the theory that ancient ice lies buried there. The impact will eject 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 also provide technologies and modular, reconfigurable subsystems that can be used to support future mission architectures. Ames Research Center (ARC) is managing the mission, conducting mission operations, and has developed the payload instruments, while Northrop Grumman designed and built the spacecraft for this innovative mission. Ames mission scientists will spearhead the data analysis. This is a fast-paced, low-cost, mission that will leverage some existing NASA systems, Northrop-Grumman spacecraft expertise, and Ames’ Lunar Prospector experience. Scheduled for launch no earlier than June 17, 2009, LCROSS will travel to the Moon as a co-manifested payload aboard the launch vehicle for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). LRO is designed to map the lunar surface and characterize landing sites for future missions.

The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 2:32 p.m. PDT, with a companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. LRO safely separated from LCROSS 45 minutes later.

LCROSS then was powered-up, and the mission operations team at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., performed system checks that confirmed the spacecraft is fully functional.

LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket separately will collide with the moon at approximately 4:30 a.m. PDT on Oct. 9, 2009, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are tentatively targeted to impact the moon's south pole near the Cabeus region.

The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by LRO, other spacecraft orbiting the moon, and observatories on Earth. "LCROSS has been the little mission that could," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"We stand poised for an amazing mission and possible answers to some very intriguing questions about the moon." The 1,290-pound LCROSS and 5,216-pound Centaur upper stage will perform a swing-by maneuver of the moon around 6 a.m. on June 23 to calibrate the satellite's science instruments and enter a long, looping polar orbit around Earth and the moon.

Each orbit will be roughly perpendicular to the moon's orbit around Earth and take about 37 days to complete. Before impact, the spacecraft and Centaur will make approximately three orbits. On the final approach, about 54,000 miles above the surface, LCROSS and the Centaur will separate.

LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn its science payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to slow down. The spacecraft will observe the flash from the Centaur's impact and fly through the debris plume.

Data will be collected and streamed to LCROSS mission operations for analysis. Four minutes later, LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume. "This mission is the culmination of a dedicated team that had a great idea," said Daniel Andrews, LCROSS project manager at Ames. "And now we'll engage people around the world in looking at the moon and thinking about our next steps there."

The LCROSS science team will lead a coordinated observation campaign that includes LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, observatories on Hawaii's Mauna Kea and amateur astronomers around the world.

Ames manages LCROSS and also built the instrument payload. Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, Calif., built the spacecraft.