PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA12072: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (Artist's Concept)
NASA is scheduled to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon, on June 18, 2009.
 Mission:  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) 
 Spacecraft:  Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
 Product Size:  2880 x 1944 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Other  
Information: 		 JPL News Release 2009-098 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA12072.tif (16.8 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA12072.jpg (542.8 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

NASA is scheduled to launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon, on June 18, 2009. One of the instruments aboard, the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, will make the first global survey of the temperature of the lunar surface while the orbiter circles some 50 kilometers (31 miles) above the moon.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is the first mission in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration program, a plan to return to the moon and then to travel to Mars and beyond. The mission will gather crucial data on the lunar environment that will help astronauts prepare for long-duration lunar expeditions.

JPL designed, built and manages the Diviner instrument for NASA's Exploration Science Mission Directorate, Washington. UCLA is home institution of Diviner's principal investigator, David Paige. NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland manages the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It is a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
2009-06-18