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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter ('''LRO''') is a Robotic Spacecraft which the United States plans to place in Orbit around the Moon . 1 Launch is planned for October 2008 aboard an Atlas V Launch Vehicle .2 LRO will be the first mission implementing the United States Vision For Space Exploration and its objectives are primarily to support that policy, such as surveying lunar resources and identifying possible landing sites for subsequent human exploration of the Moon. The preliminary design review was completed in February 2006 and the critical design review was completed in November of 2006.3 MISSION Under development by NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center , LRO is planned to be a large and sophisticated spacecraft in a Polar Orbit for a nominal mission of one Earth Year . An optional extended phase of the mission (up to 5 years) could provide a communications relay for other future ground lunar missions, such as moon Lander or Rover . Areas of investigation will include:4
ONBOARD INSTRUMENTS The orbiter will carry a complement of six instruments and one technology demonstration:
LRO's high-resolution mapping will show some of the larger pieces of equipment previously Left On The Moon , and will return approximately 70-100TB of image data. LCROSS Piggy-backing on the launch of LRO will be the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite ('''LCROSS'''), which is designed to watch as the launch vehicle's Centaur upper stage impacts a permanently shadowed region near either the north or south pole of the Moon. Spectral analysis of the resulting impact plume will help to confirm preliminary findings by the Clementine Mission which hinted that there may be water ice in the permanently shadowed regions. LCROSS will fly through the debris plume, then approximately 10 minutes later will itself impact into a different part of the crater. The two impacts, which should be easily visible to amateur astronomers, will also be monitored by Earth-based observatories and possibly by other orbital assets. The addition of the LCROSS payload came about after NASA changed LRO to a larger rocket from the Delta II . It was chosen from 19 other proposals.5 LCROSS is being managed by NASA's Ames Research Center and built by Northrop Grumman . The LCROSS preliminary design review was completed on 2006-09-08 . The LCROSS mission passed its Mission Confirmation Review on 2007-02-02 6. The LCROSS mission passed its Critical Design Review on 2007-02-22 .7 SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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