LRO/LCROSS Launch

Rising above the lightning towers around the pad, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, lifts off from Launch Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.


LRO and LCROSS are the first missions in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020. The LRO also includes seven instruments that will help NASA characterize the moon's surface: DIVINER, LAMP, LEND, LOLA , CRATER, Mini-RF and LROC.


Image Credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph

Credit: NASA