Mission Atlas
← Mission directory

Mission record

Lunar Prospector

Also known as Lunar Prospector Orbiter, LunarProspector

NASA-Office of Space Science · Launched

Explore trajectory

Completed · Success

A NASA orbiter that surveyed the Moon's composition and polar hydrogen before being deliberately crashed into a south polar crater.

Destinations
Moon
Launch vehicle
Athena 2
Launch site
Cape Canaveral, United States
Countries
United States
Mission types
Orbiter

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Lunar Prospector launched aboard a three-stage Athena 2 rocket

  2. Orbit insertion

    Transfer into a 92 x 153 km preliminary mapping orbit

    Moon

  3. Milestone

    Insertion into the near-circular 100 km lunar polar mapping orbit

    Moon

  4. Milestone

    A manoeuvre lowered the orbit to 40 km for higher resolution studies

    Moon

  5. Impact

    The mission ended with a deliberate impact

    Moon

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Lunar Prospector · Orbiter

    Destinations: Moon

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

No verified trajectory dataset is committed for this mission, so Mission Atlas renders no path.

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through August 27, 2026