NASA to Host Media Telecon on Probes' Moon Orbit Insertion

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

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

Caroline McCall 617-253-1682
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
Cmccall5@mit.edu

Advisory: 2011-395b December 23, 2011

NASA to Host Media Telecon on Probes' Moon Orbit Insertion

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-395b&cid=release_2011-395b

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) on
Wednesday, Dec. 28, to preview twin spacecraft being placed in orbit around the moon on New Year's
Eve and New Year's Day.

NASA's twin lunar Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes were launched from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sept. 10, 2011. GRAIL-A is scheduled to arrive in lunar orbit
beginning at 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21 p.m. EST) on Saturday, Dec. 31, and GRAIL-B on Sunday, Jan. 1,
beginning at 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST). After confirmation they are in orbit and operating
nominally, the two solar-powered spacecraft will fly in tandem orbits to answer longstanding questions
about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the
solar system formed.

Participants are:
- Maria Zuber, principal investigator, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
- David Lehman, project manager, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed at: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio .
Supporting images will be available 15 minutes prior to the telecon at: http://1.usa.gov/grailnews

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. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

For more information about GRAIL visit: http://www.nasa.gov/grail .

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