Share
Blog
Cite
Print
Email
BookmarkScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 1999) — Lunar Prospector, "the little spacecraft that could," can't anymore. As a room full of viewers and observatories from around the world looked on, the LP Mission Control team successfully ended the Lunar Prospector mission at 2:52:00.8 a.m. PDT on July 31 when the spacecraft slammed into a deep crater near the south pole of the moon.
See also:
No visible debris plume was reported and it may be several days before data from ground- and space-based observatories and telescopes can be analyzed to determine if any water vapor was liberated by the impact.
Mission Control at NASA's Ames Research Center indicated that they are confident the small, spin-stabilized spacecraft hit its intended target precisely. The failure to reacquire a signal from the vehicle at the time it would have emerged from the dark side of the moon is proof that impact occurred. The absence of a visible debris plume is not a negative result. In fact, it increases the likelihood that the spacecraft impacted deep into the intended target crater.
The final sequence of events for Prospector began at 1:17 a.m. PDT when the Mission Control team successfully loaded a 60-minute pre-programmed countdown into Prospector's internal clock to initiate the final burn sequence. At 2:00 a.m. PDT, final loss of signal from Prospector occurred, as planned, when the spacecraft passed behind the moon for the last time. Alan Binder, Lunar Prospector Principal Investigator observed, "We don't want to hear from Prospector again – if we do, we've missed our mark." He was not to be disappointed.
The scheduled 4 minute 36.5 second burn was executed behind the moon at 2:17 a.m. "Prospector's engines should be burning full -- preparing to de-orbit," said Binder. "It is now hurtling towards its destiny at approximately 1.7 kilometers per second on a ballistic trajectory that will take it to its target crater."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please follow these links to reach PUBLICATION SIZE IMAGES, some in AP Leaf Desk format minus embedded captions. On July 31 added three artist's conceptions of Lunar Prospector spacecraft speeding towards Moon. See images marked, "released July 31." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The spacecraft's key scientific instruments continued to send data until the very end when signal was lost. "Once again, Prospector has done everything we have asked of it," said Binder. "This mission provided ten times better data than we expected. The spacecraft performed flawlessly to its very end. Scientists will be analyzing the tremendous volume of valuable data obtained for years to come," he concluded.
Analysis of data obtained during the mission-end experiment will be ongoing for days, and possibly weeks, to come. At the completion of that analysis, scientists will have a much better idea if Prospector has, in fact, provided the definitive evidence of water ice on the moon that they were seeking. A positive result may have the potential to open up expanded possibilities for solar system exploration. Failure to prove conclusively that water ice exists in the lunar polar regions by no means suggests that it is absent, according to mission scientists. It simply means that this particular bold experiment, acknowledged as high payoff but also with low probability of success, has not provided the conclusive evidence that was being sought.
-- end --
Further information about Prospector and its science data return can be obtained at the project Web site:
Additional information about the end-of-mission sequence is available at:
http://www.ae.utexas.edu/~cfpl/lunar/
