The National Aeronautics and Space Agency has plans to crash a small spacecraft into the moon to ascertain whether the planet harbours water, which could be used for manned missions.
Mission LCROSS -- Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite -- will hitch a ride to the moon onboard the same rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite due for launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in October 2008.
"The LCROSS mission gives the agency an excellent opportunity to answer the question about water ice on the moon," Daniel Andrews of NASA Ames, whose team proposed LCROSS, said on Monday.
"We think we have assembled a very creative, highly innovative mission."
LCROSS will hunt for water by hitting the moon twice, throwing up plumes that may contain signs of water. After the launch, the LCROSS spacecraft will arrive in the moon's vicinity independent of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
On the way to the moon, the LCROSS spacecraft's two main parts, the Shepherding Spacecraft (S-S/C) and the Earth Departure Upper Stage (EDUS), will remain coupled. As the pair approaches the moon's south pole, the upper stage will separate, and then hit a crater in the South Pole area.
A plume from the upper stage crash will develop as the Shepherding Spacecraft heads in toward the moon. The Shepherding Spacecraft will fly through the plume using its instruments to analyse the cloud for signs of water and other compounds. Additional space and Earth-based instruments also will study the 1000-metric-ton plume.
"This type of payload is not new to NASA," says Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Scott Horowitz, who made the selection. "We are taking advantage of the payload capability of the launch vehicle to conduct additional high risk/high payoff science to meet Vision for Space Exploration goals."
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and LCROSS are the first of many robotic missions that the US space agency will conduct between 2008 and 2016 to study, map, and learn about the lunar surface to prepare for the return of astronauts to the moon.
These early missions will help determine lunar landing sites and whether resources, such as oxygen, hydrogen, and metals, are available for use in NASA's long-term lunar exploration objectives.