Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter - Mission Progress

Mission Progress

On June 23, 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter entered into orbit around the Moon after a four and a half day journey from the Earth. When launched, the spacecraft was aimed at a point ahead of the Moon's position. A mid-course correction was required during the trip in order for the spacecraft to correctly enter Lunar orbit. Once the spacecraft reached the far side of the Moon, its rocket motor was fired in order for it to be captured by the Moon's gravity into an elliptical lunar orbit. A series of four rocket burns over the next four days put the satellite into its commissioning phase orbit where each instrument was brought online and tested. On September 15, 2009, the spacecraft started its primary mission by orbiting the Moon at about 50 kilometers (31 mi) for one year. After completing its one-year exploration phase, in September 2010, LRO was handed over to NASA's Science Mission Directorate to continue the science phase of the mission. It will continue in its 50 km circular orbit, but eventually will be transitioned into a fuel-conserving elliptical orbit for the remainder of the mission.

NASA's LCROSS mission culminated with two lunar impacts at approximately 4:30 a.m. PDT on October 9. The goal of the impact was the search for water in the Cabeus crater near the Moon's south pole, and preliminary results indicated the presence of both water and hydroxyl, an ion related to water.

On Jan. 4, 2011, the Mini-RF instrument team for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found that the Mini-RF radar transmitter had suffered an anomaly. Mini-RF has suspended normal operations. Despite being unable to transmit, the instrument is being used to collect bi-static radar observations using radar transmissions from the Earth. The Mini-RF instrument has already met its science mission success criteria by collecting more than 400 strips of radar data since September 2010.

In January 2013 NASA tested one-way laser communication with LRO by sending an image of the Mona Lisa to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument on LRO from the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.