NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins are Joined to Their Booster

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

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

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

Tracy Young 321-867-9284
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
tracy.g.young@nasa.gov

News release: 2011-257 August 18, 2011

NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins are Joined to Their Booster

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-257&cid=release_2011-257

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's lunar-bound GRAIL twins were mated to their Titan II
launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17 at 8:19 a.m. EDT
(5:19 a.m. PDT) yesterday. The 15-mile (25-kilometer) trip from Astrotech Space Operations in
Titusville, Fla., is the last move for GRAIL before it begins its journey to the moon. 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.

"We are about to finish one chapter in the GRAIL story and open another," said Maria Zuber,
GRAIL's principal investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge. "Let me assure you this one is a real page-turner. GRAIL will rewrite the book on
the formation of the moon and the beginning of us."

Now that the GRAIL spacecraft are atop their rocket, a final flurry of checks and tests can begin
to confirm that all is go for launch. The final series of checks begins tomorrow, Aug. 19, with an
on-pad functional test. The test is designed to confirm that the spacecraft is healthy after the
fueling and transport operations. Next week, among all the upcoming final tests, reviews and
closeout operations leading up to liftoff, the GRAIL team will install the launch vehicle fairing
around the spacecraft.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8, 2011, and extends through Oct. 19. For a Sept. 8 liftoff,
the launch window opens at 8:37 a.m. EDT (5:37 a.m. PDT) and remains open through 9:16 a.m.
EDT (6:16 a.m. PDT).

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://www.nasa.gov/grail .

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