[Luminari]

NASA chasing the holy "Grail" the Moon's Interior

NASA's Associate Administrator for Science Alan Stern announced the selection of a new mission that will peer deep inside the moon to reveal its anatomy and history. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will manage the Grail mission. The spacecraft will be built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or Grail, mission is a part of NASA's Discovery Program. It will cost $375 million and is scheduled to launch in 2011. Grail will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon and provide scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

http://www.moondaily.com/reports/New...ution_999.html