When the Beagle landing craft was presumed to have crashed into
the surface of Mars, it marked the failure of the project. If
Nasa's new spacecraft collides head-on with the Moon, the
mission will be deemed a success. The Lunar Crater Observation
and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) will end up embedded in the
surface of the Moon as part of a mission to look for water
there. Before it crash-lands, LCROSS will fire two large
projectiles into a permanently shadowed crater at one of the
lunar poles. The resulting crater within a crater is expected to
be the size of a football pitch and between 15 and 20 metres
deep. The impact will create a plume of lunar material that will
be analysed for the presence of water. One crucial piece of
equipment will be an ultra-rugged thermal imaging camera built
by Thermoteknix Systems in Cambridge. This will be used to
monitor temperature variations at the impact and in the plume.
The camera will be on board the LCROSS, which will head towards
the Moon four minutes after a section of