First GRAIL Twin Enters Lunar Orbit – NASA’s New Year’s Gift to Science
Posted by brandoniswrite on January 1, 2012
GRAIL-A spacecraft achieved Lunar Orbit Insertion on New Year’s Eve.
Artists concept shows twin GRAIL spacecraft orbiting the Moon. The twin GRAIL spacecraft will fly in tandem to map the moon’s gravity field with unprecedented precision to unlock hidden secrets about the moons interior composition, determine if it possesses an inner core, and yield a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. Credit: NASA
See JPL Mission Control photos below
Cheers erupted after the first of NASA’s twin 6 Million Moon Mapping probes entered orbit on New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31) upon completion of the 40 minute main engine burn essential for insertion into lunar orbit. The small GRAIL spacecraft will map the lunar interior with unprecedented precision to deduce the Moon’s hidden interior composition.
“Engines stopped. It’s in a great initial orbit!!!! ”
- NASA’s Jim Green told Universe Today, just moments after verification of a successful engine burn and injection of the GRAIL-A spacecraft into an initial eliptical orbit. Green is the Director of Planetary Science at NASA HQ and was stationed inside Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Ca (see photos below).
“Pop the bubbly & toast the moon! NASA’s GRAIL-A spacecraft is in lunar orbit,” NASA tweeted (…)
Read the rest of First GRAIL Twin Enters Lunar Orbit – NASA’s New Year’s Gift to Science (870 words)
© Ken Kremer for Universe Today, 2012. |
Permalink |
No comment |
Add to
del.icio.us
Post tags: GRAIL, GRAIL Lunar mission, gravity mapping, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Moon, Moon core, NASA
Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
Filed Under: Space Shuttle Era - Comments: Be the First to Comment
Tags: Enters, First, Gift, GRAIL, Lunar, NASA’s, Orbit, science, Twin, Year’s
top
Add A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.