Happy Landings, SMART-1

April 24, 2006 3:39 PM

Crash. Tiny SMART-1, ESA's first lunar probe (also a compact spacecraft technology test bed), has been in lunar orbit since November 2004. Following the success of its primary and secondary missions, ESA now plans to crash SMART-1 into the moon, with a hard landing on the near side which may be visible from Earth. More stuff on ESA's little lunar trooper: SMART-1 lunar imagery, SMART-1 NASA Master Catalog entry, Planetary Society's SMART-1 category, and SMART-1 on Wikipedia.
posted by brownpau (4 comments total)

Breaking stuff is cool. Crashing stuff into the moon is cooler. But why crash it into the moon? Is the moon our new garbage dump in space?
posted by Sprocket at 4:43 PM on April 24, 2006

Wait, so what's the thing called again?
posted by The Monkey at 6:10 PM on April 24, 2006

Thanks for the detailed links brownpau. I hadn't heard about this.
posted by Popular Ethics at 9:51 PM on April 24, 2006

I can't wait for the video to come out so I can decide for myself whether Brokeback Mountain was robbed at the Oscars. It already sounds like the Oscar voters just did the safe thing by going with the movie about interspatial conflict.
posted by srboisvert at 12:25 AM on April 25, 2006