With their mission now complete, NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission spacecraft, named Ebb and Flow by elementary school students, will be watched by many on Earth as they are directed to crash themselves into the surface of the Moon. The live video of the impact of the twin GRAIL spacecraft will be broadcast and carried online below via a feed from NASA TV, with impact taking place on December 17th at approximately 5:28 p.m Eastern.
The twin spacecraft, which were named by school children in Bozeman, Montana as part of a nationwide contest, have successfully completed their prime missions. After continuing beyond their prime objectives, and performing extended lunar research, the pair is now running low on fuel since beginning an orbit about the Moon last New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
During their year in orbit, the GRAIL spacecraft have provided scientists with unprecedented detail of the moon’s internal structure and composition. In some of our earlier articles we covered some of the discoveries and milestones of the GRAIL mission.
Watch live streaming video of GRAIL spacecraft crashing into the Moon from NASA TV online below here or at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio and www.ustream.tv/nasajpl