Dec 23 2011

From The Space Library

NASA Hosts Media Teleconference On Probes' Moon Orbit Insertion

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA to hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST on Wednesday, Dec. 28, to preview twin spacecraft being placed in orbit around the moon on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

NASA's twin lunar Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sept. 10, 2011. GRAIL-A is scheduled to arrive in lunar orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. PST on Saturday, Dec. 31, and GRAIL-B on Sunday, Jan. 1, beginning at 2:05 p.m. PST. After confirmation they are in orbit and operating nominally, the two solar-powered spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits to answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

Participants are: - Maria Zuber, principal investigator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge - David Lehman, project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.