In the pre-dawn hours Friday, a spacecraft is scheduled to punch a 13-foot-deep hole in the moon’s south pole to a crater that hasn’t seen sunlight in billions of years. The purpose: to find out whether ice is hidden there.
NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which set out for the moon in June, made a late course correction Tuesday to position itself to steer a rocket into the 2-mile-deep crater Cabeus at 4:30 a.m., PDT, on Friday.
Four minutes later, if all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will fly through the cloud of debris that will rise above the lunar surface and linger there for less than a minute. As it passes through the cloud, the satellite’s nine instruments will analyze the dust and debris for evidence of water, before crashing itself.
Scientists preparing for the collision could hardly contain their excitement over what might turn up.
“The spacecraft is looking great. I don’t think we could miss the moon now if we tried,” said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, Calif., which built the craft.
According to scientists, water on the moon would be as valuable as gold. Not only would it be useful to drink, should President Barack Obama continue President George W. Bush’s ambitious plan to build a lunar base there after 2020, but it could be broken down to make breathable air and even rocket fuel.
In 1999, NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission found evidence of hydrogen, a possible indicator of water, in permanently shadowed craters at both poles.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
