Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – Mapping the Moon

Sometime next year, NASA is planning to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, which will focusing on mapping the moon’s surface in preparation for future human missions on the moon. It’s a pretty ambitious project, with 6 sensors on the satellite, that will capture not only high-resolution imagery, but also topography (through a laser altimeter instrument), surface temperatures, and hydrogen content on the lunar surface. The orbiter is scheduled to spend a year in a polar orbit collecting data, and data from the mission will be made available to the public after processing. The project has the potential to get some pretty amazing data sets, and NASA also hopes that it will be good experience for future planetary exploration missions.

Via Technology News Daily

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