MOON WATCH NIGHT: What can spacecraft see?

Well depending upon the camera they have on-board, and how close they fly to the surface, they can resolve down to about 50 cm.

Being outside the Earth’s atmosphere, spacecraft can map the Moon in many different wavebands and colours e.g. from X-rays, through ultra-violet and visible light, right up into thermal infrared.

Spacecraft can also map the Moon using RADAR in order to see what is beneath the surface.

Below are a set of links to current, future and past space missions

Recent Lunar Mission Web Sites:

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – 50cm resolution images

LCROSS – Lunar impact near the south pole

SMART-1 – A European mission

Chandrayaan-1 – Indian Moon mission

Chang’e 1 – Chinese Moon mission

Chang’e-2 – Chinese Moon mission – higher resolution

Kaguya – Japanese Moon mission

GRAIL – Lunar gravity mission

Future Lunar Mission Web Sites:

LADEE – NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (2013)

Chandrayaan-2 – Indian Moon mission (2013)

Luna-Glob – Russian surface penetrator mission (2015?)

Past Lunar Mission Web Sites:

Lunar Prospector – NASA Mineralogical mapper

Clementine – US Navy technology mission

Apollo – NASA maps

Apollo – NASA photographs from Orbit

Apollo – NASA photographs from the Moon’s surface

Luna and Zond – Russian landers and orbiters

Lunar Orbiter – photographic image collection

Surveyor – NASA robotic lander images

Ranger – NASA crash lander images

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Webmaster: Dr Anthony Cook

Web version 2011/10/06

(Email: atc @ aber.ac.uk)