Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)

The NMDB provided significant trajectory design support for the Ames Research Center-managed LCROSS mission this fiscal year. LCROSS was a secondary payload, co-manifested with the GSFC-managed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, and launched in June 2009.

The primary LCROSS mission objective is to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar polar region. Since ferrying water and other goods from Earth to the Moon is expensive and time consuming, finding natural resources, such as water ice, on the Moon could help expedite future lunar exploration.

One unique aspect of the LCROSS mission concept is that the spacecraft carries the spent upper stage of the Atlas V launch vehicle, called the Earth Departure Upper Stage (EDUS), with it for most of its trajectory. Soon after launch, LRO separates from LCROSS. After separation from LRO, LCROSS, with the EDUS still attached, will perform a lunar swingby, go into a high ecliptic inclination orbit about the moon for 1.5 - 5 orbit periods, and then impact one of the lunar poles. Eight hours before impact, EDUS and LCROSS will separate. The EDUS will then impact the polar region while several LCROSS instruments, as well as selected ground and space assets, will analyze the impact plume for signs of water-ice. LCROSS, itself, still in view of the ground communication assets so that data can be transmitted back to Earth, will then also impact the Moon four minutes later.