Smart-1 enters the last year of its life stable
Some propulsion maneuvers have successfully extended the life of the Smart 1 spacecraft on the moon. Prior to this, some program changes had to be developed and imported due to the low amount of fuel remaining in the satellite ion drive. The mission was originally only scheduled to last until July of this year, but received a funding commitment in February for another year in lunar orbit.
After the steering maneuvers put Smart-1 into a new orbit by Sep 17, the ion drive was finally shut down. From October, the scientific investigations of the moon will be resumed. The orbit now attained will not allow Smart-1 to crash onto the lunar surface until August 2006. Until then, the probe will continue to analyze the composition of Earth's companion, look for ice in polar regions and take photos from low altitude.
The mission of the European probe was provisionally planned until the summer of this year with the main goal of testing the principle of the new ion drive in action. Once this was done satisfactorily, the camera that was carried was used to take pictures of the moon from different angles under suitable lighting. In addition, the Smart 1 X-ray spectrometer, as a technological pioneering feat, was able to reliably detect calcium on the moon for the first time using remote sensing.
