New LCROSS impact target Cabeus
Date: 08 October 2009
Depicts: AMIE image mosaic of target LCROSS impact site
Copyright: B.Grieger, B.H. Foing & ESA/SMART-1/AMIE team
A mosaic of 4 images taken by the Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment (AMIE) on board ESA's SMART-1 mission, showing the area around the target LCROSS impact site: crater Cabeus at the lunar South Pole. See the related image "Context map of SMART-1/AMIE mosaic" for the position of this mosaic on a map of the Moon's southern hemisphere.
The SMART-1 images forming the mosaic have been taken at different epochs with different illumination conditions, in January 2005 from a distance of 1037 km and on February 2006 from a distance of 622 km. The SMART-1 AMIE mosaic is about 95 km wide. The dots at the centre of the image indicate that the predicted impact points for the LCROSS Centaur stage and shepherd spacecraft are well placed within the shadowed area of crater Cabeus.
As of 8 October, the expected impact points for the LCROSS Centaur stage and shepherding spacecraft are (84.675°S, 311.275°E) and (84.729°S, 310.64°E) respectively.
