NASA plans to send a low-budget robot craft to lunar orbit in the space agency's first moon voyage since it spent $25 billion to accomplish six lunar landings more than two decades ago.
The robot moon craft, to be called Lunar Prospector, will be built for about $59 million, NASA said Wednesday. This is in sharp contrast to some space science craft, such as orbiting telescopes, that cost a half-billion dollars and more.Lunar Prospector, scheduled for launch in June 1997, will carry instruments that will be able to map the chemical composition of the moon's surface from lunar orbit. The craft also will measure magnetic and gravity fields and search for frozen water in the chilled shadows of craters near the lunar poles.
The robot will be just over 4 feet in diameter, far smaller than the craft that first carried astronauts to the lunar surface in 1969.
Daniel S. Goldin, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the new moon mission is part of a program to explore the universe with cheap, quickly built spacecraft. The effort, called the Discovery Program, has prompted 28 space mission proposals.
The Discovery Program focuses on use of small planetary probes that have specific scientific goals and which can be built within 36 months for less than $150 million.