NASA moon impactor successfully completes lunar maneuver

With the assist of the moon's gravity, LCROSS and its attached Centaur booster rocket entered into polar Earth orbit at 6:20 a.m. PDT (1220 GMT). The maneuver will put the spacecraft and Centaur on course for a pair of impacts near the moon's south pole on Oct. 9.

  LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket are now in a long, looping polar orbit around Earth and the moon. Each orbit will be roughly perpendicular to the moon's orbit around Earth and take about 37 days to complete. Before impact, the spacecraft and Centaur will make approximately three orbits. LCROSS and the Centaur separately will collide with the moon at approximately 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT) on Oct. 9, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials.

    The spacecraft and Centaur are targeted to impact the moon's south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and observatories on Earth.

    Nine hours before impact, about 54,000 miles (86,400 km) above the surface, LCROSS and the Centaur will separate. LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn its science payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to create distance from the Centaur. The spacecraft will observe the flash from the Centaur's impact and fly through the debris plume. Data will be collected and streamed to Earth for analysis. Four minutes later, LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume.

    LRO and LCROSS lifted off on June 18 on a landmark mission to scout water sources and landing sites in anticipation of leading astronauts back to the moon in 2020, Kazinform informs citing Xinhua.

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