LCROSS Results Tomorrow

November 12, 2009

Last month the LCROSS satellite crashed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole, in an experiment designed to look for water ice. At that time the principal investigator, Tony Colaprete, said that they would probably announce the results from the mission within two months. Well, they’ve beaten that timeline by a month. Tomorrow there will be a press conference at NASA Ames at 9:00 am Pacific time (12 noon Eastern time) to announce the first findings.

As I wrote in my previous post, the LCROSS impact was sort of a dud from the point of view of public relations.  It was not possible to see the debris plume from an amateur telescope, as the mission planners had hoped. Nevertheless, the instruments on the spacecraft definitely did see the debris. Thus, from an engineering point of view, the mission was a success. They landed the spacecraft where they wanted to land it and they got data.

So that leaves one more question: Was the mission a success scientifically? And in particular, did they find water? That’s the question that I am almost certain will be answered, one way or another, tomorrow. And of course it is the most important question from the viewpoint of future exploration of the moon.

I don’t have any inside information, but Tony Colaprete did say this in an e-mail to me a couple weeks ago: “We have a wonderful data set … It amazes me a little more each and every day.” Read into those tea leaves whatever you will!

In related news, Colaprete and other members of the LCROSS and LRO missions are going to present their early results next week in Houston, at the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group. Of course the press conference tomorrow will cover anything really big and important, but I’m sure there will be many more details and more discussion at the Houston meeting.

Fortunately, New Scientist has commissioned me to write an article about the status of the lunar water question, taking into account all the results that have been announced this year, from Kaguya to Chandrayaan-1 to LRO and LCROSS. I will attend the Houston meeting, and this will give me a chance to do lots of interviews.

I think we are now at a crossroads in lunar exploration. We’ve gotten a big influx of new data this year, with tantalizing signs that there is more water than we expected on the moon. Now is the time for planning the next steps. Do we shrug our shoulders? Do we invest $3 billion more into the NASA manned flight program, as the Augustine Commission suggested? Do we plan new robotic missions? If so, what should they do?

Lots of questions. Hopefully I’ll find out a few answers, starting tomorrow.

Tags: Houston, LCROSS, LEAG, New Scientist, Tony Colaprete, water

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 3:07 pm and is filed under Media, Missions, NASA, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.