Missions to Moon - Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Country	:	USA
Research Org	:	NASA
Mission launch	:	October 2008

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission will not only enable future human expoloration and but also provide excellent opportunities for future science missions. LRO will spend at least one year in low polar orbit around the Moon, collecting detailed information about the Lunar environment. The LRO payload, comprised of six instruments and one technology demonstration will provide key data sets to enable a human to return to the Moon. LRO's instrument suite will provide the highest resolution data, and the most comprehensive data set ever returned from the moon. Some of the data includes>

Supply information on Lunar radiation environment.
Evaluating the biological impacts and allowing development of protective technologies.
Provide the first highly accurate 3D lunar cartographic maps
Map mineralogy across the whole moon
Search for polar volatiles (especially water ice)
Provide sub-meter resolution imaging (including permanently shadowed regions)
Provide an assessment of features for landing sites

References
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

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