NASA to Probe Moon for Water
NASA made final preparations Sunday for the launch of a low-cost, water-seeking robot probe to the moon, its first mission to Earth’s closest celestial neighbor in 25 years.
The Lunar Prospector probe was scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral today at 5:31 p.m. PST and to establish an orbit around the moon by the end of the week.
Scientists are hoping the yearlong mission will answer questions left unanswered by the six Apollo moon landings and about a dozen robotic missions in the 1960s and 1970s, especially the question of whether there is water on Earth’s only natural satellite.
“You won’t see a lunar lake with moon penguins skating around on it,” Scott Hubbard, Lunar Prospector mission manager, told a prelaunch news conference. “What you will have here is water-ice mixed in within the lunar soil.”
Lunar Prospector does not carry a camera, but its five scientific instruments will probe the moon’s surface for minerals, magnetic fields, gravitational anomalies and ice.
Program scientist Joseph Boyce said finding ice would boost any plan to build a lunar outpost.
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