Spacecraft Crashes onto Moon's Surface
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A small flash illuminated the surface of the moon as the European Space
Agency (ESA) spacecraft smashed onto the lunar soil at the end of a
successful mission.
The SMART-1 spacecraft had been conducting a thorough scientific
exploration of the moon for a year and a half before scientists gave the
go-ahead to bring it down.
Scientists, engineers and space operations experts witnessed the final
moments of the spacecraft at the ESA operations center in Germany as
SMART-1 hurtled towards an area of the moon called the Lake of Excellence at
nearly 4,500 mph.
The deliberate crash was aimed at collecting data that will shed more light
about the geological features of the area around the target zone.
However, the major goal of the mission was to test a new engine (solar
electric propulsion) in space for the first time for interplanetray flights.
The engine, which generates a stream of charged particles called ions to
propell a spacecraft, is slated to be used in a mission to Mercury in 2013.
Project scientist Bernard Foing decribed the data collected as a precious
contribution to lunar science at a time when the exploration of the moon is
once again getting the world’s interest.
He said measurements taken by the spacecraft had called into question the
theories concerning the moon’s violent origin and evolution. It's widely
believed that the moon was formed an asteroid the size of Mars collided with
the Earth 4500 million years ago.
Foing said the moon probe mapped large and small impact craters, studied
the volcanic and tectonic processes that shaped the moon, unveiled the
mysterious poles, and investigated sites for future exploration.
Scientist will be kept busy in the years to come analyzing wealth of data
collected during the mission.
SMART-1, which stands for Small Mission for Advanced Research and
Technology, was the first European mission to the Moon. It was launched in
September 2003 on board an Ariane 5 rocket and reached its destination
sixteen months later after following a long spiralling trajectory around earth.
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