国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

   

WORLD / America

NASA to crash moon probe
(AP)
Updated: 2006-04-11 09:43

LOS ANGELES - NASA plans to crash a space probe into the moon in 2009 — a collision so violent it will be visible on Earth through a telescope, the space agency said Monday.

The moon crash, part of a larger mission that includes a lunar orbiter, is a quest for ice. Water is the key ingredient for supporting future human outposts on the moon, a goal of the Bush administration.

This artist's concept of an impactor spacecraft, released by NASA, shows the upper stage and a 'shepherding spacecraft' approaching the moon. NASA will send the spacecraft to the moon with the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled for October 2008. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will travel independently of the orbiter and crash into the lunar surface to search for water ice. (AP
This artist's concept of an impactor spacecraft, released by NASA, shows the upper stage and a 'shepherding spacecraft' approaching the moon. NASA will send the spacecraft to the moon with the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled for October 2008. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite will travel independently of the orbiter and crash into the lunar surface to search for water ice. [AP]
NASA scientists say the collision should excavate a hole about a third the size of a football field and hurl a plume of debris into space. After the crash of the space probe, the mothership that released it will fly through the plume and look for traces of water ice or vapor — similar to NASA's Deep Impact mission last July, which blasted into a comet.

The moon collision and orbiter will be the first of several lunar robotic projects before astronauts are sent to the moon, targeted for 2018. The entire mission will cost more than $600 million with the impactor project cost-capped at $80 million.

The mission is set to launch in October 2008, with a rocket that carries both the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and impactor. The orbiter will circle the moon for at least a year, mapping the surface, searching for water and scouting for potential future landing sites to send astronauts. The orbiter will pay particular attention to the south pole, which NASA considers a prime candidate for a future outpost.

The lunar spacecraft will target the south pole too, releasing its SUV-sized impactor probe in January 2009 on a suicide plunge at about 5,600 miles per hour toward a frozen crater believed to contain hidden ice.

If ice is found, it could be melted and the water used to help make rocket fuel or oxygen.

"These resources can make (a) future human return to the moon and future human occupation of the moon much more cost-effective," said Butler Hine, robotics deputy program manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California which is developing the impactor.

In the 1990s, several robotic probes found elevated levels of hydrogen, a component of water, around the moon's poles, suggesting ice might lie beneath the frozen surface. But they failed to find vast expanses of it.

The 2008 mission won't be the first time NASA has crashed a robotic probe into the moon. In the 1960s, the space agency launched nine Ranger spacecraft on such a mission, but only three were successful, beaming back close-up pictures as they crashed. The 1999 orbiting Lunar Prospector collided into the moon, but it was considered a disappointment because it failed to kick up a cloud of debris.

 
 

海盐县| 长寿区| 孝感市| 兴业县| 龙南县| 石台县| 临漳县| 子长县| 上林县| 松原市| 亚东县| 宣恩县| 唐山市| 巴中市| 甘南县| 吉隆县| 亳州市| 曲麻莱县| 惠来县| 泰州市| 墨脱县| 巢湖市| 萨嘎县| 商都县| 宜宾市| 平山县| 德州市| 阿拉尔市| 渑池县| 白朗县| 怀安县| 茶陵县| 霍城县| 达拉特旗| 东兰县| 华阴市| 河北省| 营口市| 宁国市| 巩义市| 蓝山县|