Chapter 1 of 5

A stage with another job

Reusing launch hardware for a lunar experiment

Told in LCROSS’s imagined voice · the events are real · source

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
LCROSSA rocket stage that had finished launching us still had a job to do.
NASA/Kim Shiflett
01I am LCROSS, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. NASA launched me with Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in June 2009. Instead of immediately abandoning the used Centaur upper stage, my mission kept it as a partner for an experiment.
My own body began with a different use for a strong metal ring.
02NASA Ames and Northrop Grumman built the shepherding spacecraft around an ESPA payload-adapter ring. Equipment panels, a solar array, propulsion and instruments turned that structure into a working spacecraft. Reuse still required engineering and tests.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
LCROSSThe question was hiding where ordinary sunlight could not reach.
NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis
03Earlier lunar observations had detected hydrogen near the poles. Water was one possible form of that hydrogen, but it was not the only explanation. Cold, shadowed crater floors offered places where volatile materials might remain trapped.
We planned to bring a little hidden material into view.
04After a lunar swingby and a long looping flight, the Centaur would strike a shadowed crater. I would follow, watching the debris with complementary instruments. The purpose was not simply a crash: it was to make a measurement.

The big idea

Hardware that has completed one task can support another. A useful experiment connects the physical action with a question the instruments can answer.

Think about it

Why keep the used rocket stage instead of discarding it after launch?

Fact file

Launch
18 June 2009 / 21:32 UT
Atlas V 401 from Cape Canaveral SLC-41, launched with LRO.
Source ↗
Science payload
Nine instruments
Five cameras, three spectrometers and one photometer—not nine cameras.
Source ↗

In this chapter: ESPA-ring spacecraft, spent Centaur stage, solar array and nine science instruments

Sources: Main record · LCROSS · NSSDCA Master Catalog · LCROSS · NASA Science · Flight Operations for the LCROSS Lunar Impactor Mission · Shooting the Moon · Daniel R. Andrews

Machine illustration: AI-made. Photos: NASA Image and Video Library, credited on each picture.

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