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Moon

LADEE Makes A New Lunar Crater

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 18, 2014
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NASA Completes LADEE Mission with Planned Impact on Moon’s Surface
“Ground controllers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., have confirmed that NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft impacted the surface of the moon, as planned, between 9:30 and 10:22 p.m. PDT Thursday, April 17. LADEE lacked fuel to maintain a long-term lunar orbit or continue science operations and was intentionally sent into the lunar surface. The spacecraft’s orbit naturally decayed following the mission’s final low-altitude science phase.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

6 responses to “LADEE Makes A New Lunar Crater”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    “The spacecraft’s orbit naturally decayed following the mission’s final low-altitude science phase.”

    Given the lack of atmosphere this requires a little explanation.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      there are very few stable lunar orbits, due to mass concentrations (commonly called mascons), which perturb objects orbiting the moon. the final orbits of LADEE were extremely close to the lunar surface, so the effects of these perturbations built up over time until it impacted the surface.

      http://science.nasa.gov/sci

      • hikingmike says:
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        Thanks I was wondering about this too. You have to be “close enough” for that to actually put it into the Moon and I guess they were.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          yes, indeed. the final 100 orbits of LADEE were less than 1 mile in altitude.

    • Rodzilla says:
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      altitude is a measurement of distance above a surface, and, as such, it does not matter whether there is atmosphere, or not. Since the moon has gravity, if an object in orbit does not have sufficient velocity to maintain that orbit, it will eventually fall. Think of a weight, tied to a string. If you stop swinging the string, or slow it down to a certain point, the object will stop its path at the limit of the string.

      • hikingmike says:
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        It probably had sufficient velocity since it was in orbit, right? A weight tied to a string has air resistance and other friction, but take that away and it would keep swinging.