Nasa launches probes into space for moon mission
Updated on 19 June 2009
Nasa has launched its first moon shot in a decade, sending up a pair of unmanned probes to help determine where astronauts could land in years to come.
The mission comes 40 years after the first lunar footprints were made and is the first step in Nasa's effort to return humans to the moon by 2020.
An Atlas V rocket carrying the two spacecraft blasted off through clouds providing an exhilarating start to the £328 million expedition.
The two spacecraft should reach the moon by early next week.
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.
When it comes time to launch astronauts to the moon, Nasa wants to avoid putting them down on an uneven surface, near boulders or in a crater.
The second probe, called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), will be aiming for a spectacular collision that should be visible from earth.
LCROSS, pronounced L-Cross, will drop the Centaur into a targeted crater. The impact will send a plume of ejected material up into the sunlight, vaporising any ice and exposing any traces of water.
Previous spacecraft have detected hydrogen in these craters which could be evidence of frozen water.
The plume of ejected material - more than 350 tons of soil and rock - should rise as high as six miles.
The trailing LCROSS will fly through the plume, take measurements, send the data to Earth, then crash into the surface four minutes after the Centaur, creating a second plume of debris.
The Hubble Space Telescope will monitor the event, as well as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, still circling the moon.
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