U.S. space agency: NASA probe begins journey to the Moon - TIME ONLINE

The spacecraft Ladee to explore the moon’s atmosphere. Whether NASA needs new data for another Moon mission, however, is unclear.

class=”articlemeta-date”> 7 September 2013 clock 10:58

The launcher Ladee the probe is before the start to the moon on NASA spaceport on Wallops Island in the U.S. state of Virginia. | © Nasa / Reuters

The U.S. space agency Nasa has sent an unmanned probe to the moon orbiting the earth satellite and to study its atmosphere. The probe Ladee (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer) was launched on Friday at 23.27 local time clock from the rocket launch site on Wallops Iceland in the U.S. state of Virginia. The missile is as big as a small car and aboard a Minotaur V rocket on the way to the moon.

Unlike the Apollo manned missions, where the flight lasted only three days, Ladee need a whole month. The probe flies only three times around the earth before the moon comes so close that it can pivot into its orbit – according to plan on 6 October. The mission is scheduled to last six months, and ending with the fall of the probe to the moon. About 100 days are provided for the collection of data.

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Ladee is intended to orbit at a height between 20 and 60 kilometers above the surface of the moon. Among other things, they should look for water molecules and study how ice could occur at the poles of the moon.

The atmosphere of the moon is so thin that the molecules contained in it do not collide. They could thus be comparable to the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere, the exosphere, which marks the transition to space.

Nasa hopes of using Ladee also a mystery from the time of the Apollo manned moon flights more than 40 years ago to solve: The astronauts were observed then before sunrise a mysterious lights on the lunar horizon. A possible explanation is that the light phenomenon was caused by dust in the lunar atmosphere -. Dust particles that are electrically charged by ultraviolet sunlight

nervousness after two false starts

The start of the 190 million-euro mission had been expected by the NASA experts with power. Neither the spaceport in a NASA Wallops branch to Iceland or the launcher had been previously used for a space mission. The rocket had the private company Orbital supplied, the last was responsible for two false starts.

Ladee the third lunar mission within five years, but also the first last. What happens next with the exploration of the Moon NASA, is currently unclear. The space agency has postponed plans for manned lunar missions also under pressure from the U.S. government first.