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As a Discovery class mission, Prospector's scientific goals were
carefully chosen to address outstanding questions of lunar science
efficiently and effectively. In the Post-Apollo era, NASA convened
the Lunar Exploration Science Working Group (LExSWG), to draft
a list of the most pressing, unanswered scientific riddles still
facing the lunar science community. In 1992, LExSWG produced a
document, entitled "A Planetary Science Strategy for the
Moon." The following lunar science objectives were listed:
How did the Earth-Moon system form? How did the Moon evolve? What
is the impact history of the Moon's crust? What constitutes the
lunar atmosphere? What can the Moon tell us about the history
of the Sun and other planets in the Solar System? Lunar Prospector
mission designers carefully selected a set of objectives and a
payload of scientific instruments which would address as many
of LExSWG's priorities as possible, while remaining within the
tight budget confines of NASA's "Faster, Better, Cheaper"
Discovery Program.
Lunar Prospector's identified science objectives are:
* "Prospect" the lunar crust and
atmosphere for potential resources, including minerals, water
ice and certain gases,
* Map the Moon's gravitational and
magnetic fields, and
* Learn more about the size and
content of the Moon's core.
The six experiments which address these objectives are:
 Neutron
Spectrometer (NS)-Map hydrogen at several signature energies and
thereby infer the presence or absence of water.
Gamma
Ray Spectrometer (GRS)- Map 10 key elemental abundances, several
of which offer clues to lunar formation and evolution.
Alpha
Particle Spectrometer (APS)-Map out-gassing events by detecting
Radon gas (current outgassing events) and Polonium (tracer of
recent, i.e. 50 years).
Doppler
Gravity Experiment (DGE)- Make an operational gravity map of the
Moon for use by future missions as well as LP by mapping gravity
field measurements from changes in the spacecraft's orbital speed
and position.
Magnetometer/Electron
Reflectometer (Mag/Er)- These two experiments combine to measure
lunar magnetic field strength at the surface and at the altitude
of the spacecraft and thereby greatly enhance our understanding
of lunar magnetic anomalies.
How do these objectives fit with what we already know about the
Moon? And what questions do they purposefully exclude?
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