Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (credit: NASA/JACK PFALLER)

Well what took so long? I’m actually really looking forward to this. Maybe we’ll finally get some interesting shots from the dark side.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launching this week, will set the stage for the planned U.S. return to the moon by surveying locations and resources

Atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida sits the first step in what will surely be a long and arduous task for NASA—returning humans to the moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, set to lift off this week, will orbit the moon in search of potential landing sites and useful resources, such as water ice, that would facilitate a long-term human presence.

For starters, LRO will improve maps of the moon, says astrophysicist John Keller of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., deputy project scientist for the $500-million mission. “A point I like to make about LRO,” he says, “is that when it comes to the shape of the moon, we actually know the shape of Mars much better than we do of the moon.” Three-dimensional laser-altimetry data taken by LRO will help to close that gap.

Read complete article here. {via Scientific American}