NASA plans to bomb the moon to find water, explains Popular Mechanics.
A team of NASA and Northrop-Grumman engineers aims to solve the mystery of lunar ice in February or March of 2009, by crashing its low-budget kamikaze spacecraft into a crater. The LCROSS spacecraft, (for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite), would remain attached to an Atlas upper-stage rocket. Using the moon’s gravity, LCROSS would maneuver into an elongated orbit around Earth that assured a collision with one of the moon’s poles.
Nine hours before impact, and 24,000 miles above the lunar surface, LCROSS and the Centaur would separate. The 5000-pound Centaur would crash into a dark crater at twice the speed of a rifle bullet, kicking up a plume of debris more than 6 miles high. Four minutes later, the heavily instrumented LCROSS would ride the plume, checking for water and relaying data to Earth until it, too, slammed into the lunar surface.
A case of life imitating art?
Meanwhile, an Ariane 5 placed AMC-21 into orbit on Thursday. The new Ku-band satellite will be placed at 125 degrees West and enter service next month.
The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service and their local broadcast affiliates will anchor the satellite. It will also be used for new applications, such as maritime mobile broadband.
The Ariane 5 also released Superbird 7, a Japanese satellite that will supply 28 Ku-band transponders for broadband Internet, high-definition cable and direct television broadcasts to customers in Japan, East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
