Mon, Aug 15, 2011
Final Inspections Completed On Lunar Orbiters
NASA's twin lunar probes – GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B - completed
their final inspections and were weighed one final time at the
Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, FL, on Tuesday.
The two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft
will orbit the moon in formation to determine the structure of the
lunar interior from crust to core and to advance understanding of
the thermal evolution of the moon. GRAIL's launch period opens
Sept. 8, 2011, and extends through Oct. 19. For a Sept. 8 liftoff,
the launch window opens at 0537 PDT and remains open through 0616
PDT.
The next step is for the two spacecraft to be loaded
side-by-side on a special adapter and packaged inside a payload
fairing that will protect them during their launch into space. Next
week, GRAIL is expected to make the trip from Astrotech to Launch
Complex 17 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station where it will be
mated with its United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket.
GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will fly in tandem orbits around the moon
for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented
detail. The mission will answer longstanding questions about
Earth's moon, and provide scientists a better understanding of how
Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, manages the
GRAIL mission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Maria
Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed
at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed
Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch
management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch
Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a
division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
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