GRAIL TWIN SPACESHIPS NOW ORBIT THE MOON

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

 PASADENA, CALIF--The second of NASA's two Gravity/Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit.  Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the moon as never before.

 

TWIN SATELITES WILL EXPLORE THE MOON

It's great we are going back to the moon. The moon may be the best place to build a permanent space station from which we can explore the solar system. The followig story about the new moon mission is an excerpt from the NASA website:

NASA Moon Mission In Final Preparations For September Launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), mission to study the moon is in final launch preparations for a scheduled Sept. 8 launch onboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

GRAIL's twin spacecraft are tasked for a nine-month mission to explore Earth's nearest neighbor in unprecedented detail. They will determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"Yesterday's final encapsulation of the spacecraft is an important mission milestone," said David Lehman, GRAIL project manager for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Our two spacecraft are now sitting comfortably inside the payload fairing which will protect them during ascent. Next time the GRAIL twins will see the light of day they will be about 95 miles up and accelerating."

The spacecraft twins, GRAIL A and B, will fly a circuitous route to lunar orbit taking 3.5 months and covering approximately 2.6 million miles (4.2 million kilometers) for GRAIL-A, and 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) for GRAIL-B.

In lunar orbit, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them. Regional gravitational differences on the moon are expected to expand and contract that distance. GRAIL scientists will use these accurate measurements to define the moon's gravity field. The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface of our natural satellite.

"GRAIL will unlock lunar mysteries and help us understand how the moon, Earth and other rocky planets evolved as well," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate launch opportunities separated by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is 8:37 a.m. EDT; the second is 9:16 a.m.

JPL manages the GRAIL mission. It is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.”