The NASA probe known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has moved closer to the moon than it ever has before, and it could set the stage for a new round of discoveries about the body that faithfully lights the night sky here on Earth each and every night.
On May 4, the LRO performed two engine burns, these burns changed its orbit to one that moves it within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the moon's south pole and 103 miles (165 kilometers) of the north pole. Previously, the LRO had been on a path that brought it within about 19 miles of the south pole.
"We're taking LRO closer to the moon than we've ever done before, but the maneuver is similar to all other station-keeping maneuvers, so the mission operations team knows exactly what to do," says Steve Odendahl, LRO mission manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Lowering the orbit of the LRO will magnify the sensitivity of the LRO's six science instruments, giving scientists a chance to learn more about how water and other compounds could be trapped at the moon's poles, said John Keller, LRO project scientists.
"The lunar poles are still places of mystery where the inside of some craters never see direct sunlight and the coldest temperatures in the solar system have been recorded," Keller says. "By lowering the orbit over the South Pole, we are essentially magnifying the sensitivity of the LRO instruments which will help us understand the mechanisms by which water or other volatiles might be trapped there."
Two instruments on the LRO should especially benefit from the lower orbit - the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), which is used to build topographical maps of the surface of the moon, and the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, which maps the moon's temperature.
Getting closer to the surface will allow the lasers of the LOLA to return a stronger signal that can lead to more detailed measurements of the geography at the moon's north and south poles. The orbit change of the LRO will also allow the Diviner to record smaller features of the moon with higher resolution data of lunar temperatures from day to night.
Scientists hope that the enhanced data from the Diviner may provide more evidence of ice and water on the moon. This information could, in turn, help NASA and other organizations better plan out future missions to the moon.
