NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission has collected detailed information on the internal structure and evolution of the moon, completing its mission to study the moon from crust to core ahead of schedule.
Information gathered from the mission is hoped to improve knowledge regarding the development of the Earth and its rocky neighbours in the inner solar system.
Since the launch of operations on 8 March, spacecraft have collected information of the entire surface from an orbit that passes over the lunar poles.
The lunar gravity ranging system, equipped on each spacecraft, broadcasts radio signals, which will allow scientists to convert the collected information into a high-resolution map of the moon’s gravitational field.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber said: "GRAIL delivered to Earth over 99.99% of the data that could have been collected, which underscores the flawless performance of the spacecraft, instrument and the Deep Space Network."
The GRAIL mission’s twin probes, named Ebb and Flow, are now being prepared to perform extended science operations, which will run from 30 August 2012 until 3 December.
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By GlobalDataNASA is also planning to expose the spacecraft to a lunar eclipse, expected to occur on 4 June.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) project manager David Lehman said before launch that the agency had planned for all of GRAIL’s primary mission science to occur between lunar eclipses.
"Now that we have flown Ebb and Flow for a while, we understand them and are confident they can survive these eclipses in good shape," he said.
Under the extended mission, the GRAIL mission planners will reduce their existing operating altitude by half to get a closer view of the moon’s gravity field.
GRAIL mission manager Joe Beerer said: "Orbiting at an average altitude of 14 miles during the extended mission, the GRAIL twins will be clearing some of the moon’s higher surface features by about five miles."
The GRAIL mission, part of NASA’s Discovery Program, is supervised by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, US.
Image: An artistic view of the twin spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) comprising NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. Photo: courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MIT.
