WE WENT TO THE MOON IN 1998 - WE NEED TO GO BACK AGAIN - LRK -
PDS Geosciences Node Data and Services: Lunar Prospector: "Lunar Prospector
Lunar Prospector (LP) was a spin-stabilized spacecraft, operating in a 100 km circular, polar orbit around the Moon during its Primary Mission in 1998. The orbit was lowered to 30 km for the Extended Mission that began in January 1999. The mission ended on July 31, 1999, when the spacecraft was targeted to impact a crater near the lunar south pole to try to vaporize part of the suspected water deposits.
The science goals of LP were to map the Moon's surface composition and its magnetic and gravity fields, to determine the frequency and location of gas release events, and to search for polar ice deposits. To meet these objectives, LP had five science instruments located on three booms: a gamma ray spectrometer, a neutron spectrometer, an alpha particle spectrometer, a magnetometer, and an electron reflectometer. In addition, Doppler tracking data was used to derive gravity measurements.
The preliminary science results from Lunar Prospector have been published in the September 4, 1998 issue of Science. Also, a detailed description of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft is available in the LP Mission Handbook document (Adobe Acrobat format file; 760 KB). "