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Craft blasts off to study moon
Source: Agencies |
September 11, 2011, Sunday
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TWO United States spacecraft rocketed toward the moon yesterday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what's inside Earth's orbiting companion.
The US space agency NASA launched the near-identical probes - named Grail-A and Grail-B - aboard a relatively small Delta II rocket to save money. It will take nearly four months for the unmanned spacecraft to reach the moon, a long, roundabout journey compared to the zippy three-day trip that Apollo astronauts took four decades ago.
"Grail, simply put, is a journey to the center of the moon," Ed Weiler, head of NASA's science mission directorate, said in Cape Canaveral, Florida, borrowing from the title of the Jules Verne science fiction classic, "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
The world has launched more than 100 missions to the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna probes in 1959. That includes NASA's six Apollo moon landings that put 12 men on the lunar surface.
NASA's Grail spacecraft - each the size of a washing machine - won't land on the moon but will conduct their science survey from lunar orbit.
Beginning in March, once the spacecraft are orbiting just 55 kilometers above the moon's surface, scientists will monitor the slight variations in distance between the two to map the moon's entire gravitational field.
At the same time, four cameras on each spacecraft will offer schoolchildren the opportunity to order up whatever pictures of the moon they want. The educational effort is spearheaded by Sally Ride, America's first spacewoman.
The entire Grail mission costs US$496 million.
The US space agency NASA launched the near-identical probes - named Grail-A and Grail-B - aboard a relatively small Delta II rocket to save money. It will take nearly four months for the unmanned spacecraft to reach the moon, a long, roundabout journey compared to the zippy three-day trip that Apollo astronauts took four decades ago.
"Grail, simply put, is a journey to the center of the moon," Ed Weiler, head of NASA's science mission directorate, said in Cape Canaveral, Florida, borrowing from the title of the Jules Verne science fiction classic, "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
The world has launched more than 100 missions to the moon since the Soviet Union's Luna probes in 1959. That includes NASA's six Apollo moon landings that put 12 men on the lunar surface.
NASA's Grail spacecraft - each the size of a washing machine - won't land on the moon but will conduct their science survey from lunar orbit.
Beginning in March, once the spacecraft are orbiting just 55 kilometers above the moon's surface, scientists will monitor the slight variations in distance between the two to map the moon's entire gravitational field.
At the same time, four cameras on each spacecraft will offer schoolchildren the opportunity to order up whatever pictures of the moon they want. The educational effort is spearheaded by Sally Ride, America's first spacewoman.
The entire Grail mission costs US$496 million.
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