LRO's Project Site

Artist concept of LRO

Learn more about the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from the project Web site maintained by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

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LCROSS Web Site

Artist concept of LCROSS

The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), managed by NASA's Ames Research Center in California, was launched with LRO on June 18, 2009. LCROSS searched for water ice in a permanently shadowed crater near one of the moon's poles. Visit the website below for more information about LCROSS and the crater impact.

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Featured Stories

Earthrise - the first ever color picture of the Earth taken from space, rises blue above a gray moonscape

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Brings 'Earthrise' ...

Imagine yourself in orbit, your spacecraft flying backward with its small window facing down toward the surface of the moon. Before you know it, ...

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Still from Tour of the Moon video

New LRO Videos: Moon's Evolution, Take a Tour

Celebrating 1,000 days in orbit, the LRO team released two new videos.

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Mission News

    LRO Resources
    › LRO/LCROSS Press Kit



    Five Things to Know about LRO
    • LRO is leading NASA’s way back to the moon.
    • The primary objective of LRO is to conduct investigations that prepare for future lunar exploration. Specifically LRO will scout for safe and compelling landing sites, locate potential resources (with special attention to the possibility of water ice) and characterize the effects of prolonged exposure to the lunar radiation environment. In addition to its exploration mission, LRO will also return rich scientific data that will help us to better understand the moon’s topography and composition.
    • Seven scientific instruments outfit LRO. These instruments will return lunar imagery, topography, temperature measurements and more.
    • Launched along with LRO was the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), a partner mission that will search for water ice on the moon.
    • In response to LRO's "Send Your Name to the Moon" initiative, the spacecraft carries a microchip with nearly 1.6 million names submitted by the public. Click here to view a photo of the microchip containing the names as engineers prepare to install it on the spacecraft.

Imagery from the LRO Camera

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