Artist's concept of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON DC: A space probe that will provide new information about the Moon ahead of future manned missions entered lunar orbit on Tuesday, four and a half days after it was launched.
The lift-off of the dual LRO and LCROSS missions atop an Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, last week, took place one month shy of the 40th anniversary of NASA's historic manned Moon landing in 1969.
Marking a milestone
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully entered orbit around the moon at 10:27am GMT, said NASA. Engineers had to perform a mid-course correction while the probe was enroute, to ensure it would successfully slip into orbit.
The Maryland-based Goddard Space Flight Centre overseeing the project said the probe's successful orbit marked a milestone in their attempts to collect new data about the Moon.
"Once we enter the Moon's orbit, we can begin to build up the dataset needed to understand in greater detail the lunar topography, features and resources," said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager.
Now the probe is in orbit, it will undergo a series of checks and its instruments will be brought online during a so-called commissioning phase expected to be completed 60 days after the LRO launch.
3-D maps
Scientists hope the LRO's instruments will provide information that can help them produce high-resolution, three-dimensional maps of the Moon's surface.
The mission will also explore the Moon's deepest craters, examining both permanently sunlit and shadowed areas, and provide insights on the way lunar radiation affects human beings.
The LRO was launched Thursday with a second probe, known as the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), aboard the Atlas V rocket. The LRO separated from the Atlas V rocket's Centaur upper stage last week, but the LCROSS probe will remain attached until October when it will be launched with the upper stage towards the Moon.
