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SMART Probe to Crash Into the Moon
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 30, 2006 07:29 PM
from the player-nasa-cratered dept.
from the player-nasa-cratered dept.
cyberbian writes "Amateur astronomers will be excited to note that they can witness the impact of the SMART-1 probe crashing into the moon. The impact is scheduled for the morning of September 2nd (PDT). From the article: 'There's nothing wrong with the spacecraft, which is wrapping up a successful 3-year mission to the Moon. SMART-1's main job was to test a European-built ion engine. It worked beautifully, propelling the craft in 2003 on a unique spiral path from Earth to the Moon. From lunar orbit, SMART-1 took thousands of high-resolution pictures and made mineral maps of the Moon's terrain. One of its most important discoveries was a "Peak of Eternal Light," a mountaintop near the Moon's north pole in constant, year-round sunlight. Peaks of Eternal Light are prime real estate for solar-powered Moon bases."
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A DUMB probe would have crashed into the Earth (Score:4, Interesting)
The next step is to build a probe which doesn't crash at all ;).
On an entirely more geeky note, I wonder if any of the Apollo ASLEP packages are still up and running and whether they would detect the impact?
Re:A DUMB probe would have crashed into the Earth (Score:5, Informative)
The ALSEP packages were turned off remotely when the budget for collecting data ran out. That was Sep 30, 1977. Although the Apollo 14 ALSEP had failed a year and a half earlier, the others (A12, A15-17) were still going strong -- and still would be, the RTG power source having about a 90-year half life. (Well, barring hardware failure.)
Their seismometers did detect the impact of the S-IVB upper stages and LM ascent stages that were targeted at the Moon's surface. The SMART probe is much smaller so it would depend on how close it hit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the half life that matters - it's when the output voltage drops below a useable value. The half life of the RTG's on the Voyager probes is comparable - but they h
This is all a test (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
FYI there are no stable orbits around the moon: the perilune becomes smaller and smaller with time, so unless you periodically re-raise it using on-board fuel anything that orbits the moon will eventually crash on it.
See question 5 from the ESA's SMART-1 FAQs [esa.int] for more details.
For Sale (Score:4, Funny)
Guaranteed 24hr sunlight, all year round!
Get the tan that will be the envy of your friends!(2)
(1) Address available on application. Access to the property is the responsibility of the Purchaser.
(2) Protective clothing required for outdoor activities.
krunk smash! (Score:4, Interesting)
You can learn a lot from crashes - how craters form and the composition of the ejecta. Astronomy Krunk style is still useful! Krunk smash! NASA did something similar with the deep impact probe and comet tempel.
Sad thing here is they have no idea how bright its going to be - TFA says anything between 7 and 15 mag (5 mag difference is a factor of 100 in flux) so we may not see anything really.
Better ways to observe this (Score:5, Informative)
What does the MEPA Have to Say? (Score:3, Funny)
You know, the Moon Environmental Protection Agency. Surely they're upset about this planned littering of our beloved Moon. Sure it's only a probe now, but that's setting the stage for all sorts of lunar trash. What's next? A satellite? Space shuttle? An entire station?
Won't somebody PLEASE think of our children's children's children's children's children's children's children's future home?
Overheard in mission control... (Score:5, Funny)
"That was cool! What else can we crash?"
Uh, yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
Uh, yeah. We meant to do that.
Re:Real Estate (Score:5, Interesting)
The moon is not a rainforest we have to save so that we can continue to breathe. We should avoid blowing it up, but other than that, it's a big hunk of rock we just haven't put to good use yet.
Parent
Re:Real Estate (Score:4, Funny)
like blowing it up.
Parent
Re:Real Estate (Score:5, Interesting)
Real estate is not a business evolved term, in fact it's rather the opposite. It's a fuedalism evolved term.
"Real" means "royal" and "estate" means "status"; real estate is that property, status; held by royal grant, one's condition under the power of the king.
If you don't like the term applied to the moon; go complain to the King of the Moon.
KFG
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He's a little
Places on Earth to view (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article (which also has links to tips for backyard astronomers wanting to witness it):
10:41 PM on the west coast or 1:41 AM on the east coast. It will probably have set or be setting at that time on the east coast, and the twilig
Re:Silly question (Score:5, Informative)
Orbital decay only occurs when a satelite is within the atmosphere of the body it orbits. It's caused by air resistance sapping the satelite's orbital velocity.
Since the moon is essentially airless, this won't happen. You could (at least in theory) orbit as close to the moon as you like as long as your path doesn't smack into the side of a mountain. In practice, I'm not sure I'd want to risk it, but it's certainly not against the laws governing orbital mechanics.
Over extremely long time periods, you'd run into problems, since "essentially airless" is not quite the same as "totally airless" (even in deep space there is no true vacuum), but I suspect we'd be talking about decades at a minimum here.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Peak of Eternal Light (Score:4, Insightful)
What did you do, make the post then log in with a different name and mod yourself?
Even during a total eclipse, tha moon is not totally dark. Sunlight gets refracted towards the moon through the Earth's atmosphere. A mountain peak at the Moon's pole could indeed be in eternal light.
One thing that really irks me is people that base the validity of a statement on their personal assumptions. In the words of Adam Savage of Mythbusters: "I reject your reality and substitute my own."
Parent
Re:Peak of Eternal Light (Score:5, Funny)
What you really want to worry about are the Solar Eclipses of the Moon, when the Sun passes between the Earth and the Moon...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
TLF
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Old news actually.
In fact in earth orbit you're supposed to bring spacecraft out of orbit at the end of their life. T
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"How bright will it be? No one knows. Estimates range from 7th to 15th magnitude. In other words, it might be bright enough for backyard telescopes--or so dim that even big professional observatories won't see a thing. The only way to find out is to look."
secondly..
"The nominal impact time [esa.int] favors observers in western parts of North Ameri
Actually it's a very smart mission (Score:5, Informative)
I know that yours was a joke, but FYI crashing into the moon is the end of every mission in lunar orbit (yes, this includes the ascent stages of the Apollo Lunar Modules); those orbits are not stable due to the gravity of the sun, the Earth and irregularities in the moon itself.
And, considering that this is an ESA mission, why the summary has only a link to the NASA site? ESA has a lot of good information about the mission and the impact:
IMHO the most important results from this mission (beside a lot of nice detailed images) are the successful use of a ion engine with a very complicated low-power path (that thing passed through the L1 Lagrangian Point, switching seamlessly from earth orbit to lunar orbit) and the extensive mapping of the moon surface chemical composition using X-ray and infrared instruments.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)