Engineers have conducted a fuel tank check of one of NASA's GRAIL mission spacecraft (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), scheduled for launch in 2011. Confirming the size and fit of manufactured components is one of the steps required prior to welding the spacecraft's fuel tanks into the propulsion system's feed lines. Read more
MIT professor of physics Maria Zuber. is the principal investigator of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory "GRAIL" for short. It's a new NASA mission slated for launch in 2011 that will probe the moon's quirky gravity field. Data from GRAIL will help scientists understand forces at play beneath the lunar surface and learn how the moon, Earth and other terrestrial planets evolved.
NASA has designated the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission to fly aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket. The launch will be provided under terms of a launch service agreement procured previously by NASA for this vehicle. The liftoff will occur from Space Launch Complex 17B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in the third quarter of 2011. Part of NASA's Discovery Program, GRAIL will fly twin spacecraft in tandem orbits around the moon for several months to measure its gravity field in unprecedented detail. The mission will also answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon and provide scientists a better understanding of how the Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.