The two spaceships separated and now each will go through a process of testing the devices
A successful launch of the rocket on the morning of June 23 allowed the Lunar Rover (LRO) to enter lunar orbit.
The rocket was ignited by flight controllers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland to help the spacecraft capture the moon's gravity after a five-day journey.
LRO will now begin its main mission - mapping the surface of the moon in order to locate landing sites and look for resources that will allow a human presence to be established on the moon. During the next few days, the spacecraft's instruments will be activated and it will move to its final and permanent orbit around the moon.
Although the launch was shared, the LRO and LCROSS spacecraft separated shortly after. LCROSS continues with the final stage of the Centaur rocket and has successfully performed a hopping maneuver near the moon and returned to cruise mode. The skip maneuver provided gravitational assistance to the LCROSS cruise track. During the cruise phase, the mission team will assess the state of the spacecraft.
The spacecraft will not approach the lunar surface again until the day it is scheduled to crash - October 9, 2009.
