The Lunar Prospector (LP) Mission consisted of a spin-stabilized orbiter spacecraft designed to perform continuous mapping of the Moon from a circular polar orbit. The LP spacecraft was launched on January 7, 1998 (UTC). The primary mapping mission began on January 16, 1998 and lasted for one year. During most of the mapping mission, the spacecraft mapped the surface from a 118-minute, circular, polar orbit 100 km above the moon's surface. Starting on December 19, 1998, the spacecraft was maneuvered into a 40 km orbit as a transition into a low altitude extended mission orbit. The transition orbit was used to collect gravity data in order to verify the moon's gravity model in preparation for conducting the extended mission orbit.
 
The extended mission began on January 16, 1999. The objective of the extended mission was to provide higher resolution mapping from a circular, polar orbit averaging 30 km above the moon's surface. The Lunar Prospector mission ended on July 31, 1999 when the spacecraft was intentionally impacted into a crater near the south pole. The impact site was targeted for one of the hydrogen deposits detected by Lunar Prospector's Neutron Spectrometer.

LUNAR PROSPECTOR

Text-based and an interactive map-based search interface for finding and downloading desired orbital observations

LUNAR PROSPECTOR

Description

Identifier (LID)

Version