
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA's Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, arrives from Northrop Grumman's facility in Redondo Beach, Calif., at Astrotech near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a spring launch. The satellite's primary mission is to search for water ice on the moon in a permanently shadowed crater near one of the lunar poles. LCROSS is a low-cost, accelerated-development, companion mission to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. At Kennedy, the two spacecraft will be integrated with an Atlas V launch vehicle and tested for final flight worthiness. LCROSS and LRO are the first missions in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
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NASA ID
KSC-2009-1751
Date Created
February 19, 2009
Center
KSC
Media Type
image
Location
Kennedy Space Center, FL
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