Astronomy and Space
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE; ) was a NASA lunar exploration and technology demonstration mission. It was launched on a Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on September 7, 2013. During its seven-month mission LADEE orbited the Moon's equator studying the lunar exosphere and dust in the Moon's vicinity. Its instruments included a dust detector, neutral mass spectrometer, and ultraviolet-visible spectrometer, as well as a technology demonstration consisting of a laser communications terminal. The mission ended on April 18, 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the far side of the Moon, which was later determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman V crater.
Heliosphere.
2024.
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