PARIS, Sept 3: One of the most innovative missions in space exploration came to a dramatic close on Sunday as Europe’s first probe to the Moon crashed into the lunar surface giving stargazers around the world an astronomical fireworks display.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) revolutionary probe known as SMART-1 smashed into a plain called the Lake of Excellence on the southwestern side of the Moon’s face, ‘producing a more intense flash than expected’, the mission’s chief scientist, Bernard Foing, said from ESA’s base in Darmstadt, Germany.
The craft’s suicide ride was watched live via a French-Canadian telescope based in Hawaii as it plunged to the surface on schedule at 0542 GMT at a speed of two kilometres per second, throwing up a cloud of dust.
Approaching with ‘a very shallow trajectory’, SMART-1 ‘bounced on the surface, creating a kind of fireworks display that was brighter than if it had plunged straight down onto the lunar surface’, Foing said.
ESA estimated that the impact would leave a crater measuring three to 10 metres in diameter and one metre deep.
The agency’s spokesman Bernard Von Weyhe described the probe’s demise as ‘pretty spectacular’ and said that significant amounts of material had spewed out on impact, allowing scientists to carry out further tests on the crash site.
Over the past three years, operating with a full-time staff of just seven and a total budget of just 120 million euros (151 million dollars), the little probe has been patiently testing new technology that one day could help put man on Mars.
Scientists also say that the 20,000 extremely detailed photos transmitted by the craft will yield a fresh look at the Moon, revealing Earth’s satellite as a place of surprising complexity and promise rather than a lifeless rock with little to offer except grey dust.
“SMART-1 is the vanguard” of future space missions, said the craft’s operations manager, Octavio Camino-Ramos. “Almost everything on board was innovative. It was a mission to test technology, the science was an extra plus.”
A revolutionary ion thruster engine has propelled the cube, which measured just one metre across and weighed in at a paltry 350 kilos, since it was launched in September 2003.
The engine type has only been used once before — with the US craft Deep Space 1, launched in 1998 to rendezvous with an asteroid and then a comet.
Ion engines are fuelled by xenon gas. The gas atoms are charged by electric guns powered by solar panels and are then expelled from the rear of the spacecraft, delivering a tiny thrust, visible as a ghostly blue glow.
Compared with the blast, roar and smoke of chemical rockets, ion engines seem almost laughably puny.
But chemical engines burn out after a couple of minutes, whereas an ion engine can push on gently for months or even years, for so long as the Sun shines and the small supply of propellant lasts.
SMART-1 travelled 100 million kilometres but used up just 80 kilos of fuel, an extraordinary feat in space exploration standards.—AFP
