Gravity Recovery And Internal Laboratory (GRAIL)

[Astronuc]

GRAIL mission will study lunar interior. New Scientist (12/14) reports, "A newly announced NASA mission" called the Gravity Recovery And Internal Laboratory (GRAIL) "will examine the Moon's interior with more than 100 times the sensitivity of previous missions." Set to be launched in 2011, GRAIL will consist of "two spacecraft flying in orbit around the Moon for several months" that will "make sensitive measurements of the Moon's gravity field." In particular, GRAIL will analyze the Moon's "far side, where [the gravity field] is relatively poorly known." [/color]
 
New Scientist notes, "Previous missions have revealed the gravity field is much lumpier than Earth's, which makes it harder for spacecraft to navigate there." Having accurate data in this regard "could be especially important starting in 2020, when NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon." Although "Japan's Kaguya spacecraft has already deployed two daughter probes for the same purpose," the Kaguya's research "team has not promised to release the raw data from its gravity measurements." Also, "GRAIL's measurements will be more than 100 times as sensitive as Kaguya's."

Rejected OSIRIS mission would have returned asteroid soil samples. Arizona's Daily Star (12/14) reports that the Origins Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security mission (OSIRIS), a University of Arizona (UA)-backed proposal that was passed over in favor of the GRAIL mission, "would have launched a spacecraft to collect and return material from" near-Earth Asteroid RQ36, which is "rich in primitive carbon compounds." OSIRIS would have "investigated for nearly a year before returning five ounces of asteroid material to the Earth. The proposal was for a 2011 launch and 2017 return." While NASA's rejection of the project "was a bit of a shock," according to Michael Drake of the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and the principal investigator for OSIRIS, "the lab will continue to seek funding for the asteroid-sample-return mission, modifying the proposal based on feedback from NASA officials." The Daily Star notes that "the ongoing Discovery program aims to launch a mission every 12 to 24 months."