NASA’s twin gravity-mapping GRAIL spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow, respectively, on Monday early evening crashed into a mountainous crater rim on the Moon as planned, NASA announced on its Google Plus page. NASA deliberately collided the two unmanned probes into the moon’s surface, destroying them, because their primary mission was completed and they were running out of fuel. NASA did not want the probes to remain in low orbit over the moon, where they would become space junk and eventually de-orbit, potentially colliding with historic landing sites on the moon’s surface.
NASA’s GRAIL Spacecraft Have Successfully Crashed Into The Moon
|
December 17, 2012 12:51 p.m.
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter