The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP) is a

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

program that uses

robotic spacecraft A robotic spacecraft is an uncrewed spacecraft, usually under telerobotic control. A robotic spacecraft designed to make scientific research measurements is often called a space probe. Many space missions are more suited to telerobotic rathe ...

to prepare for future

manned A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involved ...

missions to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

. The program gathers data such as lunar radiation, surface imaging, areas of scientific interest, temperature and lighting conditions, and potential resource identification. Two LPRP missions, the

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic missions to ...

(LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (

LCROSS The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was a robotic spacecraft operated by NASA. The mission was conceived as a low-cost means of determining the nature of hydrogen detected at the polar regions of the Moon. Launched immedi ...

), were launched in June 2009. The lift-off above

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the stat ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

on June 18, 2009, was successful. The uncrewed

Atlas V Atlas V is an expendable launch system and the fifth major version in the Atlas launch vehicle family. It was originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Marti ...

rocket launched the two space probes towards the Moon, where they will provide a 3D map and search for water in conjunction with the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...

. The launch date, originally planned for October 2008, was moved to June 17, 2009, due to a postponement of the June 13, 2009 launch of the Space Shuttle ''Endeavour'' because a

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...

fuel leak. This lunar program marked the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years.

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. ...

's first step on the Moon occurred on July 20, 1969, and this launch was 32 days before its 40th anniversary. The actual journey to the Moon took about four days. The LRO entered a low orbit around the Moon, while the LCROSS mission performed a "swing-by" and entered a different orbit to set up a

collision In physics, a collision is any event in which two or more bodies exert forces on each other in a relatively short time. Although the most common use of the word ''collision'' refers to incidents in which two or more objects collide with great fo ...

with the Moon's surface several months later. The projected lunar impact of the

Centaur A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as bein ...

and LCROSS spacecraft was on October 9, 2009, at 11:30 UT (7:30 a.m. EDT, 4:30 a.m. PDT), ± 30 minutes. The plume from the Centaur impact was predicted by NASA to be visible through telescopes with

apertures In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opti ...

as small as 10 to .

Program history

Initially, the LPRP program was a part of the

Science Mission Directorate The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engages the United States’ science community, sponsors scientific research, and develops and deploys satellites and probes in collaboration with NAS ...

of NASA (SMD) and was called the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP). Management of the RLEP program was assigned to

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC emp ...

(GSFC) in February, 2004. At that time, the Program's goal was to "...initiate a series of robotic missions to the Moon to prepare for and support future human exploration activities." In 2005, responsibility for RLEP was moved to NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) and management was assigned to the

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labora ...

(ARC). In 2006, the program was renamed the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program and management responsibility was reassigned to the

Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama ( Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first ...

(MSFC). The

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

583 million space mission comes equipped with a $504 million LRO space probe and a $79 million LCROSS satellite.

LRO

The

(LRO) is the first mission of the LPRP program. Management of the LRO was assigned to

(GSFC) in 2004. The LRO launched on an

401 rocket from

on June 18, 2009, at 5:32 p.m. EDT (2132 GMT). The planned liftoff at 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT) was delayed by 20 minutes due to thunderstorms. The LRO was scheduled to orbit the moon for one year, gathering high-resolution images of the lunar surface that would allow the creation of detailed maps. The LRO's goals included finding safe landing sites for human visits to the Moon, identifying lunar resources, studying the lunar radiation environment, and providing a 3D map of the Moon's surface to allow astronauts to return to the moon by 2020. The LRO carried seven main

instruments Instrument may refer to: Science and technology * Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft * Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific l ...

, including the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER), the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE), the Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND), the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), and the Miniature Radio Frequency radar (Mini-RF).

LCROSS

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (

) mission is to be launched with the LRO. It was selected as a secondary payload in 2006, and management of the program was assigned to

(ARC). The mission will explore a permanently shadowed region of a lunar pole by crashing the spent Centaur rocket upper stage of the

launch vehicle into a dark crater. The composition of the ejecta plume will be observed by a shepherding spacecraft, which will itself crash-land 4 minutes later, creating a second plume. NASA expects the impact velocity will be over 9,000 km/h (5,600 mph). The ejecta plume will weigh in the order of 350 tons (317 metric tons) and rise from the surface.

LADEE

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) launched on September 7, 2013. LADEE studied the

lunar exosphere The atmosphere of the Moon is a very scant presence of gases surrounding the Moon. For most practical purposes, the Moon is considered to be surrounded by vacuum. The elevated presence of atomic and molecular particles in its vicinity compared to ...

and dust in the Moon's vicinity.

Future projects

For a hypothetical

International Lunar Network The International Lunar Network or ILN was a proposed network of lunar surface stations to be built by the United States and the other space-faring countries in the 2010s. Each of these stations would act as a node in a lunar geophysical network. ...

, NASA and international partners planned to land two stations on the lunar surface. Their objective was to establish a robotic set of geophysical monitoring stations on the surface and, eventually, in lunar orbit as well.

Data processing

The Lunar Mapping and Modeling project is using the obtained data to develop detailed topographic maps of the lunar surface that support lunar science, exploration, commercial, educational, and public outreach activities.The Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP)
Lunar Quest, NASA. In addition, solar radiation levels will be mapped and modelled. These integrated data will be used by NASA to make decisions about, for example, lunar outpost designs.

References

External links

Official home page

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Acquisition Program
{{Use American English, date=January 2014 Missions to the Moon NASA programs Exploration of the Moon