Lunar Mission Successfully Enters Moon Orbit– Latest issue of NASA

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has successfully entered orbit around the moon following almost five-day journey. Engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., had made sure that the spacecraft's lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT on June 23.

A sequence of four engine burns through June 27 will finalize LRO's initial orbit and during this phase, each of its seven instruments is checked out and brought online. LRO Project Manager Craig Tooley reports that LEND and CRaTER are already on online and working well.

The LRO satellite will explore the moon's deepest craters, examining permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and supply understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. LRO will return more information about the moon than any earlier mission. The spacecraft's instruments will assist scientists compile high resolution, three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths.