Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Accruals
Administrative History
Sources Consulted:
Indexing Terms
Scope and Content
Arrangement of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection
Descriptive Summary
Title: Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection
Date (inclusive): 2007-2010
Collection Number: AFS8000.5-LCROSS
Creator:
Ames Research Center
Extent:
Volume: 1,145 digital objects (40.9 gigabytes) and 17 cubic feet of analog material
Number of containers: 10
Repository:
Ames Research Center,
Ames History Archives
Moffett Field, California 94035
Abstract: This collection of Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) records, accumulated by various team members, primarily
contains material related to the mission's outreach efforts. Included are digital photographs, fact sheets, booklets, technical
papers, briefings, presentations, video footage, social media campaign records, awards, posters, ephemera, objects, and memorabilia.
Language:
English
Administrative Information
Access
Collection is open for research. Access to a portion of the collection is subject to restrictions.
Publication Rights
Copyright does not apply to United States government records. For non-government
material, researcher must contact the original creator.
Preferred Citation
NASA Ames History Archives, NASA Ames Research Center. Moffett Field, California. AFS8000.5-LCROSS, Lunar CRater Observation
and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection, 2007-2010, [Container number] : [Folder number]. [Identification of item].
[Date, if available].
Abbreviated Citation
NASA ARC. AFS8000.5-LCROSS, [Container number] : [Folder number]. [Identification of item]. [Date, if available].
Administrative Information
Separated Material
Some duplicate digital items were removed. When identical content appeared in both compressed and uncompressed directories,
the former was removed and the latter retained.
Related Material
AFS8000.5-LP: Lunar Prospector Project Records, 1995-1998
AFS1070.8A: Archives Reference Collection
Acquisition Information
Transferred from LCROSS team members Stephan F. Ord on March 8, 2011 (Accession 2011-006); Kimberly Ennico Smith on March
14, 2011 (Accession 2011-007); Khaled F. Galal on March 23, 2011; Daniel Andrews on April 18 and 21, 2011 (Accession 2011-009),
May 23, 2011 (Accession 2011-010); and Robert D. Barber on June 9, 2011 (Accession 2011-012).
Accruals
An oversized banner transferred by Dan Andrews on July 23, 2013 was added to Series III (Accession 2013-015).
Oversized banners and a spacecraft model transferred by Dan Andrews on June 26, 2019 were added to Series III (Accession 2019-020).
A spacecraft nameplate replica plaque transferred by Dan Andrews on March 15, 2023 was added to Series III (Accession 2023-009).
Administrative History
On June 18, 2009, NASA launched the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS, shepherding spacecraft) as a secondary
payload to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V 401 rocket on a mission to study Earth's
moon. LCROSS was designed to confirm the presence and nature of water ice on the moon, and to study the composition of lunar
regolith by using the launch vehicle's upper stage as a kinetic impactor and its shepherding spacecraft as a data collector.
The impact would dislodge lunar material at the bottom of a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole and elevate
it high into the sunlight, thus enabling the instruments aboard the spacecraft to record its characteristics. The main task
of the LRO mission, which is still active, was to map the moon and characterize future landing sites. Both missions achieved
their primary objectives. LCROSS detected water in the moon's Cabeus crater, and LRO returned nearly 200 terabytes of images
and high-resolution maps of the lunar surface, and continues to transmit altimeter measurements back to Earth.
LCROSS separated from LRO shortly after launch, carrying the spent upper stage portion of the Centaur rocket with it, and
proceeded to shepherd the rocket tank to the impact site. The trajectory consisted of a lunar flyby on June 23, 2009, followed
by highly elliptical polar Earth orbits (Lunar Gravity Assist Lunar Return Orbits), designed to give the craft a high angle
of impact and sufficient speed to maximize the amount of material kicked up during impact. The plan while in transit was to
allow the fuel remaining in the rocket to dissipate and to turn the sides of the tank toward the sun in order to bake out
residual water. The flight proceeded smoothly until August 22, 2009, when the operations team detected an alarming, mission-threatening
anomaly as it prepared to orient the cold side of the tank toward the sun. Preceding this maneuver, during a planned break
in communications with the spacecraft, a systems malfunction had caused the thrusters to fire almost continuously and burn
a sizeable amount of propellant. However, the team resolved the spacecraft emergency in time to guide LCROSS to the impact
site without running out of fuel. On October 9, 2009, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft separated from the Centaur and sent
the rocket tank hurtling toward the bottom of the Cabeus crater at a speed of about two kilometers per second. It then performed
a braking maneuver to create a four-minute distance, positioned its instruments toward the impact site, and followed the Centaur
down to strike the moon in its turn. The first impact dislodged a large plume of debris, dust, and vapor (approximately 250-350
metric tons), which was measured and photographed by the shepherding spacecraft before that spacecraft hit the surface minutes
later. This final stage of the mission was timed so that LRO, orbiting high above the crash site, would be in position to
collect data from both impact events.
The data returned from the instruments aboard LCROSS and LRO showed that the debris plume contained pure water ice grains
as well as other volatiles, such as methane, ammonia, hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, and some light metals,
such as sodium and mercury. This detection of water on the moon definitively confirmed what the scientific community had already
suspected based on data obtained from three earlier lunar missions that remotely detected the chemical signatures of water
in the moon's polar regions: Clementine (Naval Research Laboratory, launched 1994), Lunar Prospector (NASA Ames Research Center,
launched 1998), and Chandrayaan-1 (Indian Space Research Organization, launched 2008).
Mission Development and Management
Northrop Grumman, located in Redondo Beach, California, designed and built the LCROSS spacecraft bus with oversight from the
team at NASA Ames Research Center. In order to fit LCROSS into the launch vehicle as a secondary payload to LRO, an Evolved
Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adaptor, or ESPA ring, served as the main structure of the spacecraft. Designers
placed the fuel tank inside the ring and positioned the science instruments, solar array, command and control systems, communications
devices, antennas, and batteries around the outside of the ring. The craft carried a science payload of nine instruments designed
and developed by NASA Ames for observing the impact and the characteristics of the resulting ejecta cloud: five cameras (one
visible, two near infrared, and two mid-infrared), one total luminance photometer, one visible spectrometer, and two near
infrared spectrometers.
On April 10, 2006 NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate selected the NASA Ames proposal for LCROSS to lift off as
a secondary payload to the LRO. LCROSS had to remain within a budget of 79 million dollars, weigh less than 1,000 kilograms,
and be completed in time for the LRO launch scheduled just 31 months following the selection date. To meet these requirements,
the designers pursued a non-traditional approach, creatively employing various management measures and incorporating low-cost
components. For example, they assembled a humble but fully capable control room from a series of networked personal computers
patched into the secure local network at NASA Ames. The spacecraft incorporated durable, commercially-available, "off-the-shelf"
materials such as the visible camera and other scientific instruments, and existing flight-qualified hardware, such as the
ESPA ring, rather than costly, time- and resource-consuming custom-made items. The Centaur was repurposed for use as the kinetic
impactor, thus maximizing the mass available to the working payload. Ultimately, the spacecraft was completed and delivered
on time, at a total mission cost of 79 million dollars.
The mission, science, payload, and operations were managed from Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, under the
direction of Project Manager Daniel R. Andrews of the Office of the Director of Programs and Projects, Project Management
Division (Code PX). NASA Ames Principal Investigator Anthony Colaprete led the science investigations (Office of the Director
of Science, Space Science and Astrobiology Division, Planetary Systems Branch, Code SST). Northrop Grumman designed and built
the LCROSS spacecraft bus with oversight from the team at Ames. Mission operations were led by Ames along with navigational
support from Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. LCROSS was launched co-manifested with LRO from
the Kennedy Space Center with network communications provided by the Deep Space Network.
Social Media Outreach
In addition to the usual channels such as traditional Web sites, printed publications, and broadcast media, the LCROSS mission
team experimented with disseminating information to the public in real time through two social media platforms, Facebook and
Twitter. Accounts were set up in June 2008 and maintained throughout the entire mission by Payload Scientist Kim Ennico Smith
and Observation Coordinator and Co-Investigator Jennifer Heldmann, with support from other team members and NASA Ames public
affairs officers. The Twitter feed, which was presented from the point of view of the spacecraft, was terminated after the
impact event, followed by the Facebook page a few months later. On average, Twitter was updated about twice a day and Facebook
twice a week, with heavier messaging during the launch, flyby, and impact events. Thousands of individuals from all over the
world signed on as Facebook "fans" and Twitter "followers." Before the spacecraft launch, each outlet had about 2,000 followers,
whose numbers climbed during the launch phase, then again during impact phase. After impact, there were over 11,000 Facebook
fans and approximately 13,300 Twitter followers.
Sources Consulted:
Andrews, Daniel.
Managing the Bad Day. Ask Magazine. Issue 44, Fall 2011.
NASA Ames History Archives, NASA Ames Research Center. Moffett Field, California. AFS8000.5-LCROSS, Lunar CRater Observation
and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection, 2007-2010, 1 : 10. Andrews, Daniel.
LCROSS: A High-Return, Small Satellite Mission (paper presented at the 4S Symposium in Funchal, Madeira, June 4, 2010).
NASA ARC. AFS8000.5-LCROSS, 1 : 10. Colaprete A., P. Schultz, J. Heldmann, D. Wooden, M. Shirley, K. Ennico, B. Hermalyn,
W. Marshall, A. Ricco, R. C. Elphic, D. Goldstein, D. Summy, G. D. Bart, E. Asphaug, D. Korycansky, D. Landis, and L. Sollitt,
Detection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta Plume,
Science, 330, No. 6003, 463-468, Oct. 2010.
NASA ARC. AFS8000.5-LCROSS, 1 : 10. Ennico Smith, K., J. Heldmann, L. Conrad, A. van Dijk,
LCROSS & Social Media (internal paper prepared on February 28, 2010).
Indexing Terms
The following terms may be used to index this collection.
Corporate Name
Ames Research Center
Northrop Grumman Corporation. Aerospace Systems
Subjects
Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (Spacecraft)
Lunar exploration
Moon--Exploration--21st century.
Water--Moon.
Scope and Content
The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection (7.6 cubic feet and 1,145 digital objects totaling
approximately 40.9 gigabytes) contains records and objects accumulated by various LCROSS Team members, including Project Control
Manager, Stephan Ord, Payload Scientist Kimberly Ennico Smith, and Project Manager Daniel Andrews. The bulk of the material
is in electronic format and documents the team's outreach efforts to inform, educate, and engage the general public and scientific
community. Other records were generated for internal use in the course of planning and executing the mission, for inspiring
the team, and for commemorating milestones with family and friends. Included are some informational materials produced outside
of Ames about the mission, as well as honors and awards bestowed on the team by NASA and other institutions.
Series I contains a full set of the records that were accumulated by the project office and cleared for public release. Included
are digital photographs, fact sheets, booklets, technical papers, briefings, presentations, news releases, magazine articles,
data samples, spacecraft animations, video footage of the spacecraft assembly and an environmental test, broadcasts featuring
the mission, toys, and games. Series II documents the social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter with reports, statistics,
and archived material. Series III consists of objects and oversized material in the form of awards, posters, memorabilia,
and ephemeral items. Series IV includes images, operational material, and video collected by various individual team members
from Ames and other institutions.
Arrangement of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Project Collection
This collection is arranged in four series:
- I. Outreach and Educational Material for Public Release
- II. Social Media Campaign Records
- III. Model, Awards, Memorabilia, and Ephemera
- IV. Miscellaneous Material Accumulated by LCROSS Team Members
Series are organized by function according to donors, with contents further arranged alphabetically and according to format
(analog textual materials, digital materials, objects, and oversized material). Series IV records subject to national export
restrictions are boxed separately. "Born digital" records were mainly kept in their original order, with the exception of
a few slight shifts to avoid redundancies. Loose analog versions of digital files were physically placed with files for the
corresponding digital records, in accordance with the digital file structure.
Though the bulk of this collection is in digital form, it is represented as being physically arranged into boxes and folders.
This scheme was chosen to best accommodate access to the blend of digital and physical materials. All folders bearing "Digital"
in the title contain copies of the full file directories, while all folders marked "Analog" contain any physical items the
team produced from the digital files, as well as selected copies of some of the files printed out by the archivist. Researcher
access is not limited to analog records.