- Email: [email protected]
Successful Launch of Lunar Missions
For more information about the LCROSS mission, visit: www.nasa. gov/lcross. The LRO spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles, or 50 kilometres, above the Moon for a one year primary mission. LRO’s instruments will help in the compilation of high resolution threedimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths. The satellite will explore the Moon’s deepest craters, exploring permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. For more information about the LRO mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/lro.
1918, qualified as an accountant, served her country as a maths and economics teacher, and achieved considerable distinction in helping popularize solar system studies in schools in much of the western world. Sadly, she won’t now be around to learn of the findings that, it is to be hoped, the New Horizons spacecraft will make in 2015 when it reaches Pluto. (*Not, of course, 1932, as erroneously printed in SRT168.) [Chris Argent]
Successful Missions
Launch
of
Lunar
[From NASA release, 18 June 2009]
N
ASA has successfully launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, on a mission to search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s south pole. The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 1732 EDT, with a companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon. LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket separately will collide with the Moon at approximately 0730 EDT on 9 October 2009, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analysed for the presence of water ice or water vapour, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are tentatively targeted to impact the Moon's south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by LRO, other spacecraft orbiting the Moon, and observatories on Earth. The LCROSS science team will lead a coordinated observation campaign that includes LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, observatories on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and amateur astronomers around the world.
Cosmic Rays and Neutron Monitors: A Training Course in Science and Applications, Athens (Greece), 14-19 September 2009
T
he NMDB consortium (Real Time Database for High-Resolution Neutron Monitor Measurements, sponsored by the European Commission) organizes a training course for graduate students, researchers and engineers who want to become familiar with neutron monitor measurements of cosmic rays and their applications in astrophysics, heliospheric physics, and their impact on the Earth. The training course will consist of lectures ranging from the origin of cosmic rays to their impact on Earth, and will provide hands-on experience through practical exercises, under the supervision of internationally recognized experts in the field. For further information, see: www.nmdb.eu
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1918, qualified as an accountant, served her country as a maths and economics teacher, and achieved considerable distinction in helping popularize solar system studies in schools in much of the western world. Sadly, she won’t now be around to learn of the findings that, it is to be hoped, the New Horizons spacecraft will make in 2015 when it reaches Pluto. (*Not, of course, 1932, as erroneously printed in SRT168.) [Chris Argent]
Successful Missions
Launch
of
Lunar
[From NASA release, 18 June 2009]
N
ASA has successfully launched the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, on a mission to search for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s south pole. The satellite lifted off on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 1732 EDT, with a companion mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon. LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket separately will collide with the Moon at approximately 0730 EDT on 9 October 2009, creating a pair of debris plumes that will be analysed for the presence of water ice or water vapour, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and Centaur are tentatively targeted to impact the Moon's south pole near the Cabeus region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before impact, after considering information collected by LRO, other spacecraft orbiting the Moon, and observatories on Earth. The LCROSS science team will lead a coordinated observation campaign that includes LRO, the Hubble Space Telescope, observatories on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and amateur astronomers around the world.
Cosmic Rays and Neutron Monitors: A Training Course in Science and Applications, Athens (Greece), 14-19 September 2009
T
he NMDB consortium (Real Time Database for High-Resolution Neutron Monitor Measurements, sponsored by the European Commission) organizes a training course for graduate students, researchers and engineers who want to become familiar with neutron monitor measurements of cosmic rays and their applications in astrophysics, heliospheric physics, and their impact on the Earth. The training course will consist of lectures ranging from the origin of cosmic rays to their impact on Earth, and will provide hands-on experience through practical exercises, under the supervision of internationally recognized experts in the field. For further information, see: www.nmdb.eu
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