NASA's Twin Craft Arrive in Florida for Moon Mission

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

George Diller 321-867-2468
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
george.h.diller@nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-153 May 23, 2011

NASA's Twin Craft Arrive in Florida for Moon Mission

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-153&cid=release_2011-153

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's twin lunar probes have arrived in Florida to begin final
preparations for a launch in late summer. The two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory
spacecraft (Grail) were shipped from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, to the Astrotech
payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., Friday, May 20. NASA's dynamic duo will orbit
the moon to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance
understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"NASA's lunar twins have arrived at Cape Canaveral," said Maria Zuber, Grail's principal
investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge. "We're only a
few full moons away from a mission that will reveal clues not only into the history of the moon
and Earth, but will provide important data for future lunar exploration."

The Grail twins, known as Grail-A and Grail-B, were removed from their shipping containers
Monday, May 23. Later this week, they will begin functional testing to verify their state of health
after their ride on an Air Force transport jet from Colorado. Over the next four months at the
Astrotech facility, the spacecraft will undergo final testing, fueling and packaging in the shroud
that will protect them as the Delta II launch vehicle lifts them into space. The spacecraft will then
be transported to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for installation atop the rocket that will
carry them toward the moon.

Grail will be carried into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket lifting off
from Launch Complex-19 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch period
opens Sept. 8, 2011, and extends through Oct. 19. For a Sept. 8 liftoff, the launch window opens
at 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT) and remains open through 6:16 a.m. PDT (9:16 a.m. EDT).

Grail-A and Grail-B will fly in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its
gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding questions about
Earth's moon, and provide scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets
in the solar system formed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Grail mission. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal
investigator, Maria Zuber. The Grail mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems,
Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's
Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about Grail is online at: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/grail

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