NASA Names LCROSS Observation Teams

Feb 2, 2009
By Michael Mecham



NASA has named four science teams to observe the impact of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) when it rams into the moon this August.

They will have to look fast. A companion to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that's due for launch in late April, LCROSS is a NASA Ames Research Center project that will work like a battering ram to smack into a permanently shadowed crater near one of the moon's poles. The hope is it will kick up enough debris to be visible from Earth with telescopes of just 10-12 inches in diameter.

The Centaur upper stage for LCROSS is expected to be shipped to Cape Canaveral this week and the Northrop Grumman LCROSS spacecraft in mid-February.

An army of observers, many of them volunteers, are expected to observe the impact, along with LRO as it orbits overhead, the Hubble Space Telescope and a variety of professional and amateur astronomers that Ames has solicited. LCROSS will transmit its own pictures as it heads toward oblivion, a descent that will last only minutes.

The four research teams named by Jennifer Heldmann, Ames' lead for the observation campaign, have been assigned specific tasks as the debris plume erupts:

Water vapor and particle size and composition will be observed from the Keck, Gemini and Infrared Telescope Facility with Eliot Young of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., as principal investigator.

Lunar plume observations will be made by the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, N.M., with Nancy Chanover of New Mexico State University/Las Cruces as principal investigator.

Multi-spectral imaging of the impact will be done by Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute.

A search for polar water ice will be led by the MMT Observatory of the University of Arizona/Tucson, with Faith Vilas as principal investigator.

Artist's concept of LCROSS: NASA