spacetoday.net: SMART-1 enters lunar orbit

Posted: Tue, Nov 16, 2004, 8:04 AM ET (1304 GMT)
SMART-1 enters lunar orbit (ESA)

SMART-1, Europe's first lunar spacecraft, has entered orbit around the Moon, ESA announced early Tuesday The spacecraft passed within 5,000 km of the lunar surface late Monday, about 12 hours after the spacecraft restarted its ion engine to nudge the spacecraft into a lunar orbit. The ion engine will run continuously for several days, then for shorter periods thereafter to maneuver the spacecraft into an elliptical polar orbit that passes between 300 and 3,000 km from the lunar surface; that orbit should be achieved by mid-January. SMART-1, an acronym for Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology, is primarily an experimental spacecraft designed to demonstrate ion propulsion and other technologies. The spacecraft also carries instruments to study the lunar surface, including looking for traces of water ice hidden in permanently-shadowed craters at the lunar south pole. SMART-1 was launched as a secondary payload on an Ariane 5 in September 2003, and has been slowly spiraling out to the Moon using its ion engine.