The shepherding spacecraft was designed to guide the rocket to its target at the Moon's south pole, a shaded 100km-wide depression called Cabeus crater. The LCROSS mission consisted of an empty Centaur rocket upper stage and a "shepherding spacecraft". "Then we could eventually study the history of delivery of water to the Moon and the Earth." This is so that we could, for instance, send a lander, drill down and obtain a core sample a few metres in depth," he told BBC News. "We will have to be careful to keep some areas as 'protected parks' on the Moon. The LCROSS team was able to determine the temperature of the crater punched in the lunar surface.īut questions about the persistence of water-ice on the Moon will have to wait.ĭr Bernard Foing, executive director of the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), said it would be desirable to protect some of the polar ice, if it indeed exists. But if, for some unfortunate reason, the debris doesn't get into the sunlight, we won't be able to see it, which will be disappointing." "Nasa predicts that the debris should rise nine miles, which should certainly take it over the crater rim.
But I can't say anything more than that."Įarlier on Friday, Dr Vincent Eke, from Durham University, UK, told the BBC: "The interesting thing is whether the debris that gets thrown out will actually get thrown out of the crater and into the sunlight. We need to look more closely before we conclude anything about an ejecta cloud, or not."ĭr Colaprete, from Nasa's Ames Research Center in California, added: "I see something in the spectrometer data - the spectrometers are more sensitive than the cameras. I'm glad we built our mission plan around all aspects of the impact what's streamed on the video is not at the same fidelity as what we get fresh off the spacecraft. "We need to go back and carefully look at the data to see what it says," Dr Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator on the LCROSS mission, told journalists at a post-impact news conference.
No such dust plume was apparent in images sent back by the spacecraft, however, proving a disappointment to some watchers expecting a space spectacular. The first collision was expected to throw some 350 tonnes of debris up to altitudes of 10km (6.2 miles) or more. Dr Anthony Colaprete, Nasa Ames Research Center
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