Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launch

[Space05us]

.

[DanS]

Rock on

[Darius871]

the space program
free healthcare

*runs*

[Riesstiu IV]

Space Program
Having to pay for some fat bastard's quadruple bypass surgery because he chooses to live on a diet of pork rinds and convenient store beef jerky.

[Darius871]

free beef jerky

[FrostyBoy]

What's this about? They're planning to smash a rocket into the moon right?

[Space05us]

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will conduct investigations that will prepare and support future human exploration to the moon.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first mission in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, a plan to return to the moon and then to travel to Mars and beyond. The LRO objectives are to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.

The spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit (50 km) for a 1-year mission under NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. LRO will return global data, such as day-night temperature maps, a global geodetic grid, high resolution color imaging and the moon's UV albedo. However there is particular emphasis on the polar regions of the moon where continuous access to solar illumination may be possible and the prospect of water in the permanently shadowed regions at the poles may exist. Although the objectives of LRO are explorative in nature, the payload includes instruments with considerable heritage from previous planetary science missions, enabling transition, after one year, to a science phase under NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/

[FrostyBoy]

Good to hear. But I read they want to smash a rocket into the moon to find water.