Re: Europe's 1st Lunar Mission Reaches Moon


Hi,

ok... it's 37 years late getting there... when's it due back on earth?

Earl Evleth wrote:

But ESA did it for a relatively cheap $140 million and on only 176 pounds of
xenon fuel."

Pollution free fuel!

*****
Europe's 1st Lunar Mission Reaches Moon

By DAVID McHUGH
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 3, 2006; 2:08 AM

DARMSTADT, Germany -- Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended its
three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a volcanic
plane called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause in the mission
control room in Germany.

Hitting at 1 1/4 miles per second, the impact of the SMART-1 spacecraft was
expected to leave a 3-yard-by-10-yard crater and send dust miles above the
surface. Observatories watched the event from Earth and scientists hoped the
cloud of dust and debris would provide clues to the geologic composition of
the site.

This mosaic of images provided by the European Space Agency, obtained by the
Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board European Space Agency's
SMART-1 spacecraft, shows the SMART-1 landing site on the Moon (red square
center top). this sequence on 19 August 2006 from the relatively high
distance of 1200 kilometres (745.6 miles) from the surface, with a ground
resolution of about 120 metres, or 394 feet, per pixel. The imaged area,
located at mid-southern latitudes on the lunar near-side, belongs to the
so-called 'Lake of Excellence'. SMART-1's impact is currently expected on
Sept. 3, 2006 at 1:41:51 AM EDT (5:41:51 UT). SMART-1, ESAs first SMART
(Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology) mission, is a small
lunar orbiter designed to demonstrate innovative and key technologies for
scientific deep space missions. (AP Photo/ESA) (AP)
"That's it _ we are in the Lake of Excellence," said spacecraft operations
chief Octavio Camino as applause broke out in mission control in Darmstadt,
Germany. "We have landed."

Minutes later, officials showed off a picture captured by an observatory in
Hawaii displaying a bright flash from the impact.

"It was a great mission and a great success, and now it's over," said
mission manager Gerhard Schwehm.

On Saturday, mission controllers had to raise its orbit by 2,000 feet to
avoid hitting a crater rim on final approach. Had the orbit not been raised
the craft would have crashed one orbit too soon, making the impact difficult
or impossible to observe.

The spacecraft's instruments have gathered information that could increase
scientists' understanding of how the moon's surface evolved and help test a
theory that the moon originated when another astronomical body slammed into
the Earth.

Even before the mission ends, however, ESA is already celebrating the main
goal of the three-year mission _ a successful test of the fuel-efficient ion
engine they hope to use for future interplanetary missions, such as the
BepiColombo joint mission to Mercury with Japan's space agency slated for
launch in 2013.

SMART-1 was launched into Earth orbit using an Ariane-5 rocket from the
European spaceport in Kourou, French Guinea, on Sept. 27, 2003. It then used
the ion engine to slowly raise its orbit over 14 months until it was seized
by the moon's gravity and swung into orbit around it. By contrast, the first
manned U.S. moon mission, Apollo 11, took 76 hours to reach lunar orbit in
1969, hurled by a giant Saturn-V rocket.

SMART-1, a cube measuring roughly a yard on each side, took the long way _
over 62 million miles instead of the direct route of 217,000 to 250,000
miles.

But ESA did it for a relatively cheap $140 million and on only 176 pounds of
xenon fuel. NASA's Deep Space 1, launched in 1998, also used an ion engine.


--

- Call me ruthless, amoral, but never call me dishonest. -
.

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