Engineers have conducted a fuel tank check of one of NASA's GRAIL mission spacecraft (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), scheduled for launch in 2011. Confirming the size and fit of manufactured components is one of the steps required prior to welding the spacecraft's fuel tanks into the propulsion system's feed lines. The image was taken on June 29, 2010, during the propulsion subsystem assembly and integration effort in the Space Support Building clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver.
The GRAIL mission will fly twin spacecraft (spacecraft "A" and "B") in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, and provide scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. The mission also will reply longstanding questions about Earth's moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
Scientists will use the gravity field information from the two satellites to X-ray the moon from top to core to expose the moon's subsurface structures and, indirectly, its thermal history.The measurement technique that GRAIL will use was pioneered by the combined U.S.-German Earth observing Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, mission launched in 2002. The GRACE satellites measure gravity changes connected to the movement of mass within Earth, such as the melting of ice at the poles and changes in ocean transmission. As with GRACE and GRAIL spacecraft will be launch on a single launch vehicle.
The GRAIL mission will fly twin spacecraft (spacecraft "A" and "B") in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, and provide scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. The mission also will reply longstanding questions about Earth's moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.
Scientists will use the gravity field information from the two satellites to X-ray the moon from top to core to expose the moon's subsurface structures and, indirectly, its thermal history.The measurement technique that GRAIL will use was pioneered by the combined U.S.-German Earth observing Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, mission launched in 2002. The GRACE satellites measure gravity changes connected to the movement of mass within Earth, such as the melting of ice at the poles and changes in ocean transmission. As with GRACE and GRAIL spacecraft will be launch on a single launch vehicle.
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