NASA / ISRO in Tandem Search for Moon Ice

NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have attempted a novel joint experiment that could yield more information on whether ice exists in a permanently shadowed crater near the north pole of the moon utilizing the the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft now orbiting the moon flying in a tandem search.

Both spacecraft are equipped with a NASA Miniature Radio Frequency (RF) instrument that functions as a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), known as Mini-SAR on Chandrayaan-1 and Mini-RF on LRO. The experiment uses both radars to point at Erlanger Crater at the same time. The experiment was conducted late Thursday afternoon. LRO listened while Chandrayaan-1 transmitted. The data were downloaded from LRO to ground stations Thursday night. It will take some time to process the data and evaluate the results to determine if their is lunar ice at Erlanger Crater. More from NASA and The Times of India.