Popular Mechanics has a feature story about NASA’s plans to crash a rocket into the moon in order to search for frozen water.
Early next year, the space agency will launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which will map the moon and its resources in unprecedented detail. The Atlas rocket also will send a small sub-satellite, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which will remain attached to the upper-stage Centaur booster. LCROSS will steer the booster toward a collision with one of the moon’s poles.
“Nine hours before impact, 24,000 miles above the lunar surface, LCROSS and the Centaur would separate. The 5,000-pound Centaur would crash into a dark crater at twice the speed of a rifle bullet, kicking up a plume of debris more than 6 miles high. Four minutes later, the heavily instrumented LCROSS would ride the plume, checking for water and relaying data to Earth until it, too, slammed into the lunar surface.”
