NASA's LRO Spacecraft Sends First Lunar Images to Earth

NASA RELEASE : 09-152

GREENBELT, Md. – NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has transmitted its first images since reaching lunar orbit June 23. The spacecraft has two cameras – a low resolution Wide Angle Camera and a high resolution Narrow Angle Camera. Collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, they were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium.

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface. To view these first calibration images, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/lro

Full resolution detail from one of the first LROC NAC images (credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)