Sentences with phrase «lunar orbit by»

Not exact matches

By 1964, it was selected for NASA's Apollo Program as the rocket that would conduct a lunar - orbit rendezvous.

And maps of slow - moving neutrons collected by NASA's Lunar Prospector, which orbited the moon in 1998 and 1999, suggested a number of craters are rich in hydrogen, though it was not clear whether the hydrogen was bound in water molecules or was present in some other form.

It's the same process that's gradually driving the moon's orbit outward: Tides raised by the moon in our oceans are gradually transferring Earth's rotational energy to lunar motion.

Co-author Richard Miller mapped the moon's remaining ice by using data from NASA's Lunar Prospector mission, which orbited the moon from 1998 to 1999.

The same side of the Moon is almost always facing the Earth, but strictly speaking, it changes by a slight amount according to the lunar orbit around the Earth.

Neal says it is apparent that China has major space ambitions, as indicated by its development of capabilities for low - Earth orbit, the lunar surface, and Mars.

Specifically, the paper reported that at lunar - resonant orbits, perturbations from the gravitational tug - and - pull exerted on spacecraft by the Moon and Earth are roughly zero, especially if the spacecraft's apogee is about 90 degrees with respect to the Moon.

The craft — named Ebb and Flow in a NASA - sponsored contest won by schoolchildren in Montana — have been measuring subtle variations in the moon's gravitational field in unprecedented detail since soon after they entered lunar orbit a little less than a year ago.

Sponsored by the two organizations, the HDTV - equipped spacecraft Kaguya entered lunar orbit last month and went on to shoot a combined eight minutes of crisp video (available here) from a distance of around 60 miles (100 kilometers), offering a panoramic view of the moon's northern topography.

Today, there is again a glimmer of optimism, as the International Space Station takes shape in orbit and the discovery of water on the moon by unmanned spacecraft affirms the feasibility of lunar colonization.

For the last few years, the agency's envisioned «Journey to Mars» campaign has included the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), an effort to pluck a boulder from a near - Earth asteroid and drag the rock to lunar orbit, where it could be visited by astronauts aboard Orion.

One idea would be to reduce the crew size from four to the three of the Apollo days, with the idea that on the Outpost - type fortnight - or - more span expeditions, we'll be able to send the whole crew down to the surface, leaving the Orion (or whichever) orbiter craft, untended in low lunar orbit, to be reached by the crew later.

After several more burns, TESS will be in a special 2:1 lunar resonance orbit of roughly 67,000 by 233,000 miles (108,000 by 375,000 kilometers) inclined 37 degrees.

Beyond low Earth orbit, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Experiment (LADEE) will, among other things, attempt to discover the cause of a faint glow witnessed above the moon's surface by the Apollo astronauts more than 40 years ago.

The recent announcement that $ 100 million had been earmarked in the White House's FY 2014 Budget Proposal Request to send an unmanned probe to an asteroid and have it transported back to lunar orbit to be studied by astronauts has generated a lot of buzz.

India could build or buy commercial electric propulsion systems built in France or Russia to significantly improve the cargo payload mass that could be put into a stable Low Lunar Polar Orbit by its possible future Reusable Launch Vehicle or a «HLV» based on the Unified Launch Vehicle.

Mosaic of photos taken of the far side of the moon by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, orbiting at an altitude of just 30 miles (50 km).

The lunar nodes are determined by the points where the moon's orbit crosses the «ecliptic» — the apparent path the sun makes around the earth.

Here's a video clip taking you from one such view, the famous Earthrise photograph taken by NASA astronauts orbiting the moon in 1968, to an astonishing video version of the same scene shot from the Kaguya Lunar Explorer satellite in 2007.

My investigations of the properties of the lunar orbit indicate that the strengths of extreme proxigean spring tides are affected by two main alignment periods that reoccur on distinctly different time scales.