NASA's Twin Grail Spacecraft Reunite in Lunar Orbit

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
NASA Headquarters, Washington
Dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Caroline McCall 617-253-1682
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
cmcall5@mit.edu

Whitney Lawrence Mullen 858-638-1432
Sally Ride Science, San Diego
wmullen@sallyridescience.com

Image advisory: 2012-031 Feb. 1, 2012

NASA Mission Returns First Video From Moon's Far Side

PASADENA, Calif. -- A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior
Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon.
MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students
nationwide to select lunar images for study.

GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is
equipped with a MoonKAM. The images were taken as part of a test of Ebb's MoonKAM on Jan.
19. The GRAIL project plans to test the MoonKAM aboard Flow at a later date.

To view the 30-second video clip, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/zZXAPs .

In the video, the north pole of the moon is visible at the top of the screen as the spacecraft flies
toward the lunar south pole. One of the first prominent geological features seen on the lower third of
the moon is the Mare Orientale, a 560-mile-wide (900 kilometer) impact basin that straddles both the
moon's near and far side.

The clip ends with rugged terrain just short of the lunar south pole. To the left of center, near the
bottom of the screen, is the 93-mile-wide (149 kilometer) Drygalski crater with a distinctive star-
shaped formation in the middle. The formation is a central peak, created many billions of years ago
by a comet or asteroid impact.

"The quality of the video is excellent and should energize our MoonKAM students as they prepare
to explore the moon," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The twin spacecraft successfully achieved lunar orbit this past New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
Previously named GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft received their
new names from fourth graders at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont.,
following a nationwide student naming contest.

Thousands of fourth- to eighth-grade students will select target areas on the lunar surface and send
requests to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. Photos of the target
areas will be sent back by the satellites for students to study. The MoonKAM program is led by
Sally Ride, America's first woman in space. Her team at Sally Ride Science and undergraduate
students at the University of California in San Diego will engage middle schools across the country
in the GRAIL mission and lunar exploration. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying
instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach.

"We have had great response from schools around the country; more than 2,500 signed up to
participate so far," Ride said. "In mid-March, the first pictures of the moon will be taken by students
using MoonKAM. I expect this will excite many students about possible careers in science and
engineering."

Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow periodically perform trajectory correction maneuvers
that, over time, will lower their orbits to near-circular ones with an altitude of about 34 miles (55
kilometers). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the
moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar
system formed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program
managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space
Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

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

Information about MoonKAM is available at: https://moonkam.ucsd.edu/ .

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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