Skylog: Brilliant Illuminations

Current news on NASA LCROSS project

The LCROSS project is going to send an impactor near the southern pole at 4:30 am Ames time. The impactor is not the spacecraft just the bus LCROSS is still attached to. The spacecraft LCROSS will gather data on the impact and send it back to AMEs Mission Ops. They are looking for water that has been ejected from the moon in the plume. The plume may be hard to view at 6:30 am here. It looks like the moon will be near the zenith in the southern sky.

The team has been experiencing problems with the inertial navigation sensors. They control the attitude and aid with trajectory. The Ames team feel they have the problem solved and the impact will go as planned, but that may also mean that they are not sure of the impact site. They will announce details on the sites on the 10 of Sept.

You can follow LCROSS on the social communication networks at these sites:
http://twitter.com/Lcross_Nasa
http://groups.google.com/group/lcross_observation
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LCROSS-Lunar-Impactor-Mission/154478180006

Stay tuned for continued updates on this project here.