NASA Lunar Mission Ends After Planned Spacecraft Crash into the Moon

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) was once a robotic mission that orbited the moon to gather detailed information regarding the lunar atmosphere, conditions on the surface, and environmental influences of dust.

Early Friday morning between approximately 12:30 a.m. and 1:22 a.m. EST, the LADEE spacecraft, as planned, crashed into the moon at 3,600 miles per hour, officially ending the six-month mission. The mission was divided into eight phases, ending with the "decommissioning" phase.

According to the LADEE Mission Overview, the decommissioning phase is the final period "during which the altitude will be managed down to lower altitudes, after which the spacecraft will impact the lunar surface." The orbit was designed to have the decommissioning phase occur on the far side of the moon to avoid LADEE from coming into contact with any of the Apollo sites.

The phases in between "launch" and "decommission" included ascent, activation and checkout, phasing orbits, lunar orbit insertion, commissioning, and science. The Science Phase was the longest one, lasting 100 days while the moon rotated three times underneath the spacecraft's orbit. NASA scientists believed that such examination of our moon would help unveil various mysteries as well as better understand other planetary bodies.

One of those mysteries questioned whether lunar dust is responsible for the pre-sunrise glow seen above the lunar horizon during the Apollo missions. The date provided by LADEE will hopefully provide that answer, along with other detailed information regarding the structure and composition of the lunar atmosphere.

"LADEE was a mission of firsts, achieving yet another first by successfully flying more than 100 orbits at extremely low altitudes," said Joan Salute, LADEE program executive, in this NASA news release. "Although a risky decision, we're already seeing evidence that the risk was worth taking."

The LADEE program hopes that the $280 million dollar investment has paid off after retrieving data over the last six months. You can read more about the LADEE mission in this Space.com article as well as this New York Times article.