Atlas to launch LRO
Posted: Sun, Jul 30, 2006, 1:52 PM ET (1752 GMT)
NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to launch the space agency's first lunar mission in a decade on an Atlas 5. Lockheed will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft on an Atlas 5 401 from Cape Canaveral no earlier than the end of October 2008, under a $136.2-million contract announced Friday. LRO is the first NASA mission to the Moon since the Lunar Prospector mission in 1998, and the first in a series of robotic precursor missions that will eventually lead to a human return to the Moon before 2020, as part of the overall Vision for Space Exploration. The same rocket will also carry, as a secondary payload, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), a small spacecraft that will look for evidence for water ice in the Moon's south polar regions by observing the impact of the Centaur upper stage, and then crashing into the Moon itself.
NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract to launch the space agency's first lunar mission in a decade on an Atlas 5. Lockheed will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft on an Atlas 5 401 from Cape Canaveral no earlier than the end of October 2008, under a $136.2-million contract announced Friday. LRO is the first NASA mission to the Moon since the Lunar Prospector mission in 1998, and the first in a series of robotic precursor missions that will eventually lead to a human return to the Moon before 2020, as part of the overall Vision for Space Exploration. The same rocket will also carry, as a secondary payload, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), a small spacecraft that will look for evidence for water ice in the Moon's south polar regions by observing the impact of the Centaur upper stage, and then crashing into the Moon itself.| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
SpaceX sets Nov. 18 launch date for sixth Starship test flight
Posted: Sat, Nov 9 9:57 AM ET (1457 GMT) |
|
news links
|
|
Sunday, November 24
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base
KFMB-TV San Diego — 2:26 am ET (0726 GMT) Dawn Aerospace Achieves Historic Flight - Breaks Sound Barrier and Global Records
Dawn Aerospace — 2:23 am ET (0723 GMT) Elon Musk’s most remarkable achievement – making space travel boring
The Independent — 2:21 am ET (0721 GMT) SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites on the 400th Falcon 9 rocket
Spaceflight Now — 2:12 am ET (0712 GMT) Watch Rocket Lab launch 5 French 'Internet of Things' satellites Nov. 24
SPACE.com — 2:11 am ET (0711 GMT) |
