The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is a space exploration mission scheduled for launch in mid 2013. During its nominal 100 day science mission, LADEE will orbit around the Moon's equator, and use instruments aboard the spacecraft to study the lunar exosphere and dust in the Moon's vicinity. Instruments will include a dust detector, a neutral mass spectrometer, and an ultraviolet-visible spectrometer, as well as a technology demonstration, a laser communications (lasercomm) terminal. LADEE was announced during the presentation of NASA's FY09 budget in February 2008. It will be launched aboard a Minotaur V from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
Read more about Lunar Atmosphere And Dust Environment Explorer: Mission Objectives, Instruments, Launch, Propulsion System, Image Gallery
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“A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—William Burroughs (b. 1914)