LADEE

LADEE stands for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer.  It is the most recent of NASA's missions to  moon, which was launched on Friday, September 6 from NASA Goddard's Wallops Flight Facility in VA..  It is a robotic mission for orbiting moon and studying its dust environment and exosphere.

"An “exosphere” is an atmosphere that is so thin and tenuous that molecules don’t collide with each other. Studying the Moon’s exosphere will help scientists understand other planetary bodies with exospheres too, like Mercury and some of Jupiter’s bigger moons." [2]

It takes one month for LADEE to get to moon's orbit.  Then, the 100-day Science Phase of the mission, during which LADEE orbits the moon at an altitude of 20-60 kilometers from the moon, starts. Finally, LADEE's lowers its altitude and impacts the moon.  This final stage takes 30 days, resulting in a total mission lifetime of 160 days.

In addition to scientific results of LADEE, this mission was important for several other reasons, mainly new technologies and capabilities that were demonstrated and tested during this mission.  The mission used a Minotaur V rocket of the Orbital Sciences, that is expected to be used in future launches [5].  Furthermore, Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) mission is achieved via LADEE.  This demonstration is the first high-rate, two-way space communication capability, a major advancement in space communication.  Both of these capabilities opens doors to future faster cheaper space missions with more and faster science data rates.  Finally it was the first time that Wallops Flight Facility launched something that can reach moon, and one hopes that this facility's capabilities mature and advance even more in the future.

The mission is managed by NASA Ames Research Center, flown by Orbital Sciences at Wallops Flight Center, while some of its instruments as well as LLCD technology were managed and developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center [6].  The mission was visible on the east coast of the United States from VA, to MD, DC, and even NY.  Here is a nice image of LADEE on its way to the moon from New York City:

Image Credit: Ben Cooper

Go LADEE!

References:

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ladee/main/#.UjY5838pid0
[2] http://science1.nasa.gov/missions/ladee/
[3] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ladee/mission-overview/index.html#.UjY8a38pid1
[4] http://esc.gsfc.nasa.gov/267/271.html
[5] http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/MissionUpdates/MinotaurV/index.shtml
[6] http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112928749/major-role-played-nasa-goddard-lunar-mission-082113/