This blog follows the progress of the LRO mission through Integration and Testing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and launch site processing at KSC\Astrotech. Its purpose is to enable communication to the entire LRO Team about the status of ongoing activities.

LRO was launched June 18th, 2009 at 5:32pm EDT from KSC. This BLOG will follow the progress of the mission as LRO travels to the Moon and establishes orbit around it.

This BLOG will be periodically updated during LRO's early mission but as the nominal mission unfolds the official NASA LRO website and the LRO Science Instrument's own websites will evolve into a more interesting sources of LRO science results as postings appear there first and LRO engineering and operations (source of this site) will become increasingly routine.

Friday, October 9, 2009

LRO Observes LCROSS Impact!

LRO Status
LRO continues to operate as planned in the 50 km nominal mission orbit post MOI with no significant open issues or problems.

In addition this week LRO operations were focused on supporting the LCROSS lunar impact today. Earlier in the week LRO adjusted its orbit to prepare to observe the impact ejecta plume. The necessary maneuvers were practiced throughout the week and LRO successfully observed the impact plume after the LCROSS impact. LRO was rolled 81 degrees to view the plume at LRO’s closest approach (76.5 km to impact site). The LAMP instrument (UV spectrometer) has already confirmed detection of the ejecta plume and has begun analyzing the their data. The Diviner instrument (Imaging Radiometer) has confirmed they have detected the LCROSS impact crater.

Congratulations to our sister mission!!
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