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From: nasanews@hq.nasa.gov
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 09:20:27 -0400 (EDT)
Fwd Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 17:07:40 -0400
Subject: Creative Impact Experiment To Mark End Of Lunar


Douglas Isbell
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone: 202/358-1547) July 28, 1999

David Morse
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
(Phone:  650/604-4724)

Becky Rische
University of Texas at Austin
(Phone:  512/471-7272)

RELEASE:  99-85

CREATIVE IMPACT EXPERIMENT TO MARK END OF LUNAR PROSPECTOR

In one final blast of scientific productivity, NASA's Lunar
Prospector mission will end abruptly in the early morning hours
of July 31 with a controlled crash into a crater near the south
pole of the moon.

The scripted, violent end of Lunar Prospector at 5:51 a.m.
EDT is designed to provide direct evidence of the existence of
water ice in permanently shadowed craters near the moon's poles.

Scientists hope that the estimated 3,800-mph impact will exhume
water vapor and rocky debris that may be detectable for several
hours, although data analysis could take days or even weeks if
the signal is faint.  Coordinated observing teams will use
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Submillimeter Wave Astronomy
Satellite, and ground-based instruments including the McDonald
Observatory in Texas and the Keck telescope in Hawaii, to seek
signs of the water vapor or its byproducts.

While the probability of successful detection is estimated to be
less than 10 percent, it will be a fittingly creative finish to
a low-cost Discovery Program mission that has exceeded all
expectations after more than 6,800 lunar orbits in 18 months.

"Regardless of the outcome of this final bold experiment, Lunar
Prospector has yielded a gold mine of science data," said Dr.
Henry McDonald, director of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett
Field, CA, which has managed the mission.  "We now have
invaluable global maps of the moon's gravitational and magnetic
fields, and the distribution of its key elements, giving us a
much better understanding of the origin, evolution and
composition of our rocky neighbor."

Launched on Jan. 6, 1998, from Cape Canaveral Air Station, FL,
aboard an Athena 2 rocket, Lunar Prospector reached the moon in
four days.  Shortly after entering orbit over the lunar poles,
its five science instruments began expanding the limited
equatorial measurements made by the Apollo command modules into
global, high-resolution data sets.

Lunar Prospector's data gathering has resulted in a series of
discoveries and new scientific tools, including:

* tentative evidence that water ice exists in shadowed craters
   near the moon's south and north poles.
* the first precise gravity map of the entire lunar surface.
* confirmed the presence of local magnetic fields that create the
   two smallest magnetospheres in the Solar System.
* the first global maps of the moon's elemental composition.

In exceeding its design life, the $63 million Prospector mission
has exhausted the bulk of its fuel and battery power.  Although
the drum-shaped probe will have a mass of only 354 pounds (161
kilograms) at the end, its impact energy will be equivalent to
crashing a two-ton car at more than 1,100 miles per hour.

Further information about Prospector and its science data return
can be obtained at the project Web site:

    http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov

Additional information about the end-of-mission sequence is
available at:

     http://www.ae.utexas.edu/~cfpl/lunar/

Dr. Alan Binder of the Lunar Research Institute, Tucson, AZ, led
the Lunar Prospector team. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed
Martin, Sunnyvale, CA.  Other participating organizations
include the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National
Laboratory, NM; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
MD; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.  An
external team of engineers and astronomers led by Dr. David
Goldstein of the University of Texas at Austin will conduct the
end-of-mission telescopic observations and data analysis.

                             -end-

                             * * *

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