Flight controllers have confirmed that NASA's small Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) moon-orbiting spacecraft crashed into the back side of the moon earlier today, April 18.
The robotic explorer likely vaporized upon contact due to its high orbiting speed of approximately 3,600 mph. The spacecraft likely crashed into a mountain or the side of a crater, according to the Associated Press.
On April 17, LADEE was seen flying 300 feet above the lunar surface.
The spacecraft's altitude was lowered on purpose to make sure a crash took place no later than April 21.
The $280 million LADEE mission launched on September 6, 2013, according to Reuters.
The spacecraft's main mission was completed in March. It was designed to study a number of things, including the Moon's exosphere.
LADEE's results will help astronomers understand other planetary bodies with exospheres, like some of Jupiter's moons and Mercury.
It also produced a great deal of data about the moon's dust exosphere, according to Sascha Kempf, from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
LADEE researchers presented early results during the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held last month in The Woodlands, Texas, according to Space.com.
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