ESA Satellite Set to Land on the Moon
Posted on: Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 21:00 CDT
The European Space Agency says the first ESA satellite will land on the moon the first weekend of September.
The spacecraft -- SMART-1 (Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology), launched in September 2003 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana -- is set to land on the lunar surface Sept. 3.
The small unmanned satellite, weighing 366 kilograms (805 pounds), was propelled into its 14-month journey to the moon by an electric propulsion engine forcefully expelling xenon gas ions. It was captured by the moon's gravity in November 2004 and took up an elliptical orbit.
The Paris-based ESA says SMART-1 will reach the lunar surface in an area called the 'Lake of Excellence,' situated in the mid-southern region of the Moon's visible disc, at 5:41 a.m. UTC (12:41 a.m. EST).
With a low speed at impact of about 2 kilometers per second (1.2 mps) SMART-1 will create a crater of 5 meters to 10 meters (16 feet to 33 feet) in diameter and about 1 meter (3 feet) deep.
Mission controllers at the ESA Operations Center near Frankfurt, Germany, will monitor the final moments before impact.
Source: United Press International
Related Articles
- NASA, ESA Join Forces On Jupiter Moon Missions
- SMART-1 Finds Good Spot for Lunar Base
- Spacecraft Prepares to Crash into the Moon
- SMART-1 Set for More Lunar Science
- SMART-1 Detects Calcium on the Moon
- SMART-1's First Images from the Moon
- First Extrasolar Planets, Now Extrasolar Moons!
- Europe readies for first moon mission with solar-powered
- SMART-1: The Lunar Adventure Begins
- ESA Presents Lunar Mission SMART-1
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds