Europe's first Moon probe, SMART-1, was successfully put into lunar orbit on Monday evening as planned, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced in Paris on Tuesday.
Thirteen months after its launch by Ariane 5, the unmanned satellite, whose mission is to map the Moon's topography and mineralogical composition, "reached its first lunar orbit on November 15 at 18:53 local time (1753 GMT)," SMART-1 Project Manager Giuseppe Racca said.
The orbit, between 5,000 and 6,000 km from the moon, is expected to be modified within four days. After a series of adjustments, the satellite is to gradually drop into its working orbit on January 13.
SMART-1 will not land on the Moon, but will work from orbit, at a distance varying from 300 km at the south pole and 3,000 km at the north, according to ESA.
The 370-kg satellite was launched in September 2003 and is powered by an ion engine. The engine has worked for more than 3,300 hours and can function for a distance of some 78 million km, loaded with only 52 kg of fuel.
With a payload of remote sensors designed mainly to seek ice near the surface, SMART-1 broke a new path to future long-term missions in the solar system and will be a huge boost for setting up a human settlement, according to ESA.
The aim of SMART -- an acronym of Small Missions for Advanced Research and Technology -- is to trial cutting-edge small science to see if it could work in extended and even manned missions to the planets.
(Xinhua News Agency November 17, 2004)
