Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer
Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer ( ladee ) is an unmanned lunar mission of NASA, to study the atmosphere and the dust of the moon. Ladee is part of the Lunar Quest program for exploration of the moon.
Planning
The launch of ladee was initially planned as a secondary payload together with the two GRAIL probes on a Delta 7925H rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station from, but handed the available space later no longer sufficient. The launch took place on September 7, 2013 at 03:27 UTC on a Minotaur V rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility.
Construction
Ladee was jointly organized by the Ames Research Center (ARC ) and the Goddard Space Flight Center ( GSFC ) developed. The ARC is responsible for the spacecraft, the GSFC for the three scientific instruments:
- A mass spectrometer
- An ultraviolet spectrometer
- A dust blow counter, which was developed at the University of Colorado
The lunar satellite is without fuel at a diameter of about 1 m and a height of about 2 m about 130 kg and consists of several modules that include drive systems and instruments. The drive system for the injection into lunar orbit was developed by Space Systems / Loral. The power is supplied by solar cells, which cover the side surfaces of the satellite.
Objectives
The probe should fulfill the following tasks:
Mission History
The mission was applied to about 160 days. Of this amount, 30 days on the flight to the moon and the injection into lunar orbit, 30 more days to test the instruments and the satellite as well as 100 days for scientific investigations. In February 2014, the mission was extended for another 28 days during which the probe is to fly at a distance of 5 kilometers or less to the lunar surface. The researchers hope to gain new insights into the atmosphere or exosphere of the moon. The probe should then turn to the 21th of April on the lunar surface.