Date: 03 Sep 2006 02:41:25
From: JackPeters
Subject: Smart-1 lunar impact visible in Hawaii
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News report on AP states that the Smart-1 impact flash was
photographed by an observatory in Hawaii.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/09/03/europe.moon.ap/index.html
TEXT:
Europe's spacecraft hits the moon
DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) -- Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended
its three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a
volcanic plane called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause
in the mission control room in Germany.
Hitting at 2 kilometers per second, the impact of the SMART-1
spacecraft was expected to leave a 3-meter-by-10-meter crater and send
dust kilometers above the surface.
Observatories watched the event from Earth and scientists hoped the
cloud of dust and debris would provide clues to the geological
composition of the site.
"That's it -- we are in the Lake of Excellence," said spacecraft
operations chief avio Camino as applause broke out in mission
control in Darmstadt, Germany. "We have landed."
Minutes later, officials showed off a picture captured by an
observatory in Hawaii displaying a bright flash from the impact.
The spacecraft is at the end of a three-year mission that scanned the
lunar surface from orbit and tested a new, efficient, ion-propulsion
system that officials hope to use on future interplanetary missions.
Launched into Earth's orbit by an Ariane-5 booster rocket from Kourou,
French Guiana, in September 2003, SMART-1 used its ion engine to
slowly raise its orbit over 14 months until the moon's gravity grabbed
it.
The engine, which uses electricity from the craft's solar panels to
produce a stream of charged particles called ions, generates only
small amounts of thrust but only needed 80 kilograms of xenon fuel.
The craft's X-ray and infrared spectrometers have gathered information
about the moon's geology that scientists hope will advance their
knowledge about how the moon's surface evolved and test theories about
how the moon came into being.
In a scare on Saturday, mission officials said they had to raise the
low point of the spacecraft's orbit by 600 meters by using its
positioning thrusters to avoid the 1.5 kilometer-high rim of a lunar
crater.
Had the orbit not been raised the craft would have crashed one orbit
too soon, making the impact difficult or impossible to observe.
SMART-1, a cube measuring roughly a meter on each side, took the long
way to the moon -- more than 100 million kilometers instead of the
direct route of 350,000 to 400,000 kilometers.
But the European Space Agency did it for a relatively cheap &euro110
million ($140 million).
The spacecraft has also been taking high-resolution pictures of the
surface with a miniaturized camera.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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