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SMART 1 - Peering for ice on the moon
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SMART-1 is the first of ESA's 'Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology'.
It is heading for the Moon using revolutionary propulsion techniques and carries a battery
of miniaturised instruments.
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As well as testing new technology, SMART-1 will make the first comprehensive inventory
of key chemical elements in the lunar surface. It will also investigate the theory that
the Moon was formed following the violent collision of a smaller planet with Earth, four
and a half thousand million years ago.
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Characteristics
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| Launch Date |
27 September 2003 |
| Launcher |
Ariane V |
| Launch Mass |
366.5 kg |
| Propulsion |
Hall Effect Thruster Ion Engine |
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Testing solar-electric propulsion
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 SMART stands for Small Missions for Advanced Research and Technology. They pave the way for
novel and ambitious science projects of the future, by testing the new technologies that will
be needed. But a SMART project is also required to be cheap - about one-fifth of the cost of a
major science mission for ESA - which is why SMART-1 has no launcher of its own.
It is not very big, just a box a metre wide with folded solar panels attached. Six strong men
could lift it. It weighs less than 370 kilograms, compared with thousands of kilograms for
Ariane's usual satellites. So it should pose no problems as an auxiliary passenger.
Its main purpose is to let engineers evaluate a new way of propelling spacecraft, on far-ranging
space missions. Power from SMART-1's solar panels will drive an electric propulsion system called
an 'ion engine'. The demonstration task is to overcome the Earth's gravity and put the spacecraft
into orbit around the Moon.
After 40 years of Soviet and American lunar exploration, knowledge of the Moon's surface is
still surprisingly incomplete. Always ready to seize a chance to make new discoveries, Europe's
space scientists have fitted SMART-1 with very modern and compact sensors.
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| ©Copyright 2004 LSE Space Engineering & Operations AG |
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