LCROSS + Four Teams Are Sensing Plume Participation

NASA has selected four teams to observe the impact of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, with the lunar surface during the mission’s search for water ice on the moon.

The LCROSS mission is a small companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in spring 2009. Instruments aboard the satellite are designed to search for evidence of water ice on the moon as the spacecraft collides with a permanently shadowed crater near one of the moon’s poles. The resulting debris plumes are expected to be visible from Earth with telescopes 10-to-12 inches in diameter or larger. These selected observation teams will provide additional data and analysis about permanently shadowed craters to help researchers determine if water exists on the moon and in what form. The LCROSS mission and the Universities Space Research Association, or USRA, of Columbia, Maryland, established specific selection criteria. USRA administered the rigorous selection process. The selected proposals are:

• Accessing LCROSS Ejecta: Water Vapor and Particle Size and Composition from Keck, Gemini, and the IRFT Telescopes; principle investigator Eliot Young, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado
• LCROSS Lunar Plume Observations with the Apache Point Observatory; principle investigator Nancy Chanover, New Mexico State University in Las Cruces
• Multi-spectral Imaging of the LCROSS Impact; principle investigator Marc Buie, Southwest Research Institute
• Searching for Polar Water Ice During the LCROSS Impact Using the MMT Observatory; principle investigator Faith Vilas, University of Arizona in Tucson

On the night of the impacts, the LCROSS science team will be in constant contact with professional astronomers to provide live targeting information. This information is crucial to ensuring the astronomers point their large telescopes correctly to capture the exact moment of the impacts and the resulting debris plumes. NASA’s Ames Research Center developed the LCROSS science payload. Ames also is managing the project and conducting mission and science operations. NASA’s Lunar Precursor Robotic Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville managed the cooperative agreement with USRA. The Universities Space Research Association, established in 1969 by the National Academy of Sciences, is a private, nonprofit consortium of 102 universities offering advanced degrees in space- and aeronautics-related disciplines.

(NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility. Credit: NASA)