Mission Summary
LCROSS was a NASA mission designed to answer one of the most important questions in lunar exploration: whether water existed in permanently shadowed regions near the Moon’s poles. Launched on June 18, 2009, alongside the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LCROSS used a unique mission design that sent its spent Centaur rocket stage crashing into the Moon while the spacecraft observed the impact.
After traveling through space for several months, LCROSS guided the Centaur into Cabeus crater near the lunar south pole on October 9, 2009. The collision created a plume of material that LCROSS analyzed before the spacecraft itself impacted the Moon minutes later.
The mission successfully confirmed the presence of water ice and other compounds hidden in the lunar soil. LCROSS transformed scientists’ understanding of the Moon, showing that polar regions contained resources that could be important for future human exploration.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
