IHT: Last minute tweak keeps Europe's first lunar mission on course - Europe - International Herald Tribune

For the complete report in International Herald Tribune please click on this link

BERLIN Europe's first mission to the moon got a scare Saturday, but ground controllers were able make a last-minute course correction that kept the European Space Agency craft from prematurely hitting a lunar crater's rim. Mission officials said they raised the low point of the SMART-1 spacecraft's orbit by 600 meters (2,000 feet) by using its positioning thrusters to avoid the 1.5 kilometer-high (almost mile-high) rim. The craft had been orbiting lower and lower ahead of Sunday's impact, which ESA hopes to study from earth for clues to the composition of the moon's surface in that area. Had the orbit not been raised the craft would have crashed one orbit too soon making the impact difficult or impossible to observe. The SMART-1 is to end its three-year voyage at 0541 GMT on Sunday crashing into a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence at 2 kilometers per second, or 7,200 kilometers per hour.