Europe's 1st lunar mission set to land

Mission on the cheap
SMART-1, a cube measuring roughly a yard on each side, took the long way — over 62 million miles instead of the direct route of 217,000 to 250,000 miles.

But ESA did it for a relatively cheap $140 million and on only 176 pounds of xenon fuel. NASA's Deep Space 1, launched in 1998, also used an ion engine.

ESA flight controllers and scientists at mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, honed their skills in managing the different rhythm of spaceflight with ion propulsion, where the continuous thrust requires more careful monitoring than coasting after the one-time impulse from a rocket.

"It's different in how you operate the spacecraft in your operations center," Schehm said. "You have to determine your orbit more frequently."

Although the moon has already been explored by U.S. astronauts, ESA says SMART-1 gathered valuable information as it orbited.

Its miniaturized X-ray and infrared spectrometers probed the mineral content of the surface to better understand the distribution of elements over the entire moon, not just the small areas explored by astronauts.

The information could increase scientists' understanding of how the moon's surface evolved and help test a theory that the moon originated when another astronomical body slammed into the Earth.

The spacecraft has also been taking high-resolution pictures of the surface with a miniaturized camera.

The mission has contributed to ESA's cooperation with India's space program, which will use SMART-1's spectrometers on its Chandrayaan-1 moon mission slated for 2007 or 2008.

ESA officials say the planned crash site at the Lake of Excellence — at coordinates 43.5 degrees west and 36.4 degrees south — will be in darkness and not directly lit by the sun's rays at the time of impact, though there will be some illumination from light reflected from earth, or earthshine.

Geographic features on the moon are named lakes and seas — such as the Sea of Tranquillity, where Apollo 11 landed — even though they are in fact dry.

If the debris cloud from SMART-1 rises more than 12 miles and reaches sunlight, it may appear as a bright spot against the darkness visible using an amateur telescope or binoculars.

The moon will be visible from North and South America and the East Pacific at the moment of impact, but not from Europe.

MORE FROM SPACE

Space Section Front

Trio brings holiday cheer to space station Rover makes discovery while spinning wheels Cosmic Log: The year in space   2009's best images from space How much real science is in ‘Avatar’? Mystery swirls around ‘dark stars’ Cassini image confirms liquid on Saturn moon Long-defunct Mars rover wheel spins Crew blasts off for Christmas space mission Earth's upper atmosphere cooling dramatically Space Section Front   Add Space headlines to your news reader: