They can go to the moon but their telephoto lenses still need some work.
yitbos
Posted on 09/02/2006 11:16:44 PM PDT by saganite
Europe's lunar satellite, the Smart 1 probe, has ended its mission by crashing onto the Moon's surface.
It was a spectacular end for the robotic probe, which has spent the last 16 months testing innovative and miniaturised space technologies.
Smart 1 has also produced detailed maps of the Moon's chemical make-up, to help refine theories about its birth.
At about 0542 GMT (0642 BST), the probe crashed into a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence.
With an impact speed of about 7,200km/h (4,500mph), even at an expected glancing blow of just one degree to the surface, the probe should have met a sufficiently violent end for astronomers to observe the event from Earth.
It is possible telescopes will have seen fresh lunar "soil", or regolith, kicked up in the crash. They may even detect a thermal flash as volatile materials on the probe melt some of its structure. The impact was expected to leave a 3m by 10m crater on the Moon's surface.
"As planned, Smart 1 has landed," said Professor Bernard Foing, the mission's project scientist from the European Space Agency (Esa).
Gerhard Schwehm, Smart 1 mission manager, said: "Everything worked up until the end, so it was a wonderful mission and a big success. Our spacecraft provided a lot of new information."
A fleet of spacecraft - both orbiters and landers - are now expected to visit the Moon in the next few years.
This train of robotic explorers will culminate in US space explorers returning to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo missions, probably in 2020.
Smart 1 was launched in September 2003 as a technology demonstrator.
It became Europe's first space science mission to use an ion engine instead of chemical combustion to reach its destination.
The system draws power through the probe's solar wings and then uses this energy to propel the spacecraft forward by expelling charged particles of xenon. It was highly efficient, covering 100 million km in a series of looping orbits and using just 60 litres of "fuel".
An ion engine will now be fitted to the majority of Europe's future spacecraft, such as the BepiColumbo mission to Mercury. It has made mineral maps of the Moon's composition, looking at the distribution of calcium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon and iron.
"You won't see any pictures coming straight through as we head towards the ground. But when we finally put the picture together what we will get is maps of what the Moon is made of."
Professor Grande has been principal investigator on one of Smart's miniaturised instruments: the compact X-ray spectrometer known as D-CIXS.
It has made mineral maps of the Moon's composition, looking at the distribution of calcium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon and iron.
Knowing the absolute abundances of these elements will help to refine theories for the Moon's formation. These describe the satellite emerging from the debris thrown out from a mighty collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body billions of years ago.
"Smart 1 will now rest in peace on the Moon," said Professor Foing.
"We are now collaborating with the international community, preparing the way for the future exploration of the Moon - the next fleet of orbiters, landers; leading to robotic villages and human bases."
Guess it wasn't that smart...
That was just too easy.
Cleanup on aisle seven...
Or, in pieces, maybe...
These jokes just write themselves, huh...
Yep, as I said, it's too damn easy. I mean... the odds of a complete mission failure are pretty high on these kind of things. So, one would *think* these guys would think about naming these things in way/writing about it that it wouldn't be like shootin' fish in the barrel disparaging their 'provess'.
Euro weenies polluting the moon with debris.
Euro weenies polluting the moon with debris.
or altering the Moons magnetic pull
They actually programmed it to crash into the moon at the completion of a completely successful mission.
Let me get this straight, a "landing" leaves a crater on the moon. If that's the case than we haven't had many airplane crashes.
The probe was never intended to "land" on the moon. Chalk that poor choice of words up to bad reporting or misinterpretation. ESA decided to use the last of it's fuel at the end of it's mission to crash the probe onto the moon. The mission was a total unqualified success.
Sure it was a success, this was all done because this probe had evidence the moon landings never happened so Karl Rove arranged it so it would crash into the moon.
Karl is busy with the hurricane machine. Must've been Cheney, the sorcerer's apprentice.
They can go to the moon but their telephoto lenses still need some work.
yitbos
Where'd you get those pics?
They've still got a long way to go before they catch up with the volume left behind by six LEMs. Not to mention that only one country has cluttered the lunar surface with all those footprints and flags (and the occasional golf ball).
As one of my aquaintances from Romania who defected to the US said when asked why he did it. "I wanted to live in the only country on Earth who had taken a $#!+ on the moon. I guess that about sums it up.
But we had a whole lot of unmanned aerial devices that made successful "landings" in Iraq.
Smart 1 successfully finished its mission, the last act of which was to hit as hard and kick up as much ejecta as possible. If it kicked enough dust where the right instruments could see it, a lot of good science could come out of that impact. Don't forget, NASA sent a probe out for the sole purpose of smacking into a comet at full speed, which it did.
If anyone comes across photo's of ground telescopes detecting the crash let me know!
Well, that wasn't very green of them.
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