Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission: Opportunities for Observations of the Impact Plumes from Ground-based and Space-based Telescopes

Details Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission: Opportunities for Observations of the Impact Plumes from Ground-based and Space-based Telescopes Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Mission: Opportunities for Observations of the Impact Plumes from Ground-based and Space-based Telescopes

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5715h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #57.15; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.590

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The primary objective of LCROSS is to help advance the Vision for Space Exploration by investigating the presence of water on the Moon. The mission, which is a secondary payload launching with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in October 2008, will use the Earth departure upper stage (EDUS) of the launch vehicle as a kinetic impactor. The impact creates an ejecta plume whose properties, including water ice and vapor content, will be observed a shepherding spacecraft (S-S/C) plus Earth- and space- based telescopes. Following a similar trajectory of the EDUS, the S-S/C will fly through the EDUS impact plume and then the S-S/C will also impact the Moon. The S-S/C impact will likely also be observable to ground-based and space-based telescopes.
The amount of material excavated in the impact scales approximately linearly with the mass of the projectile. The mass of the EDUS is 2000 kg and the mass of the S-S/C is 700 kg. For the expected angle of incidence (>60°) and impact velocity of 2.5 km/s, the ejected mass is approximately 900 and 350 metric tons, respectively, for the EDUS and S-S/C. Both of these events are hundreds of times larger than Lunar Prospector which was 1) a smaller spacecraft, 2) traveling more slowly than LCROSS, and 3) impacted obliquely.
There are a variety of ground-based and orbital observatories that can observe the dust and water plumes caused by the LCROSS impacts. The LCROSS team encourages astronomers and planetary scientists to observe the impacts to support the scientific and exploration objectives of this mission. The LCROSS project is committed to working with the observational scientists to provide mission information that is critical to the planning and proposal of observations. In this way the LCROSS project aims to develop a coordinated observation campaign utilizing ground-based and space-based observational assets.

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