Radar Fixed for Launch of U.S. Moon Probe
04:12 p.m Jan 06, 1998 Eastern
By Steven Young
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - The countdown for the launch of NASA's
low-cost robot lunar explorer resumed Tuesday after a malfunctioning U.S. Air
Force radar dish was fixed, space agency officials said.
Lunar Prospector, NASA's first moonshot since men last set foot on the moon 25
years ago, had been scheduled to lift off Monday but was delayed a day by the
radar problem.
The Lockheed Martin Corp Athena 2 rocket carrying the probe was set to blast off
at 9:28 p.m. EST Tuesday.
''We are in fine shape,'' NASA spokesman George Diller said. ''The radar has been
tested successfully and we are not working any technical problems.''
The troublesome radar was one of three, located along the Florida coastline, needed
to track the rocket for safety reasons. It took Air Force engineers about five hours
to fix the problem.
Tuesday's attempt will be NASA's last opportunity this month to launch the
Prospector probe. If something goes wrong again, the rocket will have to wait until
Feb. 3 for the next favorable Earth-moon alignment.
Weather forecasters gave the moon shot a 70 percent chance of fair weather
during the short four-minute launch window Tuesday. The only problem was a
chance of rain showers.
The spinning 650-pound Lunar Prospector does not carry a camera, but is equipped
with five instruments to map the composition of the entire lunar surface.
With a price tag of $63 million, the Lunar Prospector is a modest successor to the
multibillion dollar Apollo project, which put 12 men on the surface of the moon from
1969 to 1972.
Budget cuts in the early 1970s forced NASA to abandon lunar exploration and the
space agency concentrated its efforts on building the space shuttle and sending
unmanned probes to Mars and the outer planets.
The Jupiter-bound Galileo probe took a fleeting glimpse at the moon as it sped
passed Earth on two occasions, in 1990 and 1992, but interest in Earth's nearest
celestial neighbor was boosted when an experimental military spacecraft returned
evidence to suggest ice may exist at the moon's south pole.
Scientists had long theorized that frozen water from icy comets could have
accumulated within craters at the pole permanently shaded from the baking sun.
Radar readings from the U.S. Department of Defense's Clementine probe
appeared to confirm that, but many scientists remain skeptical.
Lunar Prospector should provide a conclusive answer to the puzzle as early as a
month after arriving in lunar orbit. It carries a neutron spectrometer, an electronic
water divining rod that can detect the hydrogen atoms in water.
The spacecraft will also measure the composition of the surface, detect magnetic
fields and map gravitational anomalies in the planet's outer crust.
''We stand on the threshold of a major scientific event,'' program scientist Joseph
Boyce said. ''We impatiently await this launch.''
Lunar Prospector is now due to arrive in a 62-mile high orbit about the moon's poles
on Sunday after a 4-1/2-day coast through space. Eventually the craft will crash on
the lunar surface -- but scientists are unsure exactly when that will happen, saying it
will depend on the strength of the moon's gravity and other factors.
The last U.S. moonshot was on Dec. 7, 1972, when NASA launched Apollo 17, the
sixth and last of manned lunar landing missions.
The space agency said Monday that the probe was carrying one ounce of the ashes
of planetary scientist Gene Shoemaker, who died last year.
Shoemaker, his wife, Carolyn, and amateur astronomer David Levy discovered the
broken comet that crashed into Jupiter in 1994. He was also involved in the
unmanned Ranger missions that paved the way for the Apollo moon landings.
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