IPS2010

Ending an historic mission, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impacted the surface of the Moon, on 9 October 2009, in a search for lunar ice. Scientists will analyze data acquired by the spacecraft's instruments to determine whether water ice is present.

LCROSS traveled approximately 10 million km, during its 113-day spaceflight, which ended in a permanently shadowed cold lunar crater, near the Moon's south pole. The spacecraft was launched on 18 June 2009, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, aboard an Atlas V rocket, which also lofted another Moon-bound probe, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

"The LCROSS science instruments worked exceedingly well and returned a wealth of data that will greatly improve our understanding of our closest celestial neighbor," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS principal investigator and project scientist of NASA's Ames Research Center. "The team is excited to dive into data."

On 8 October 2009, in preparation for impact, LCROSS separated from its spent upper stage rocket, about 90,000 km from the Moon.

Moving at a speed of over 2 km per second, the rocket stage hit the lunar surface on 9 October, at about 11:31 UTC, making an impact that was observed by instruments on board LCROSS. LCROSS then impacted the Moon, approximately four minutes later.

"This is a great day for science and exploration," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "The LCROSS data should prove to be an impressive addition to the tremendous leaps in knowledge about the Moon that have been achieved in recent weeks. I want to congratulate the LCROSS team for their tremendous achievement in development of this low cost spacecraft and for their perseverance through a number of difficult technical and operational challenges."

Other observatories reported recording both impacts. The analysis of the data would last several weeks.
On 28 September, BA Senior Astronomy Specialist Aymen Ibrahem, conducted a public lecture, titled “A Collision with the Moon”, illustrating the LRO and LCROSS missions, at the Library’s Auditorium.