Smart 1
Smart 1 or SMART-1 is a lunar satellite that relies on a solar powered ion thruster to put it into orbit around Earth's Moon. "SMART" stands for Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology.
Smart 1 is a lightweight probe (815 pounds or 350 kg), just one metre (approximately 3 feet) across. The total cost is a relatively low EUR 110 million (USD 126 million). Smart 1 is part of the European Space Agency's strategy to build spaceships smaller and more cheaply than those of its American counterpart, NASA.
Its solar-powered ion thrusters are designed to give it more endurance than a space probe equipped with traditional chemical rockets. The onboard fuel reserve amounts to just 60 litres (about 16 U.S. gallons) of inert xenon. The thrusters use an electromagnetic field to project xenon ions at high velocity. Because the exhaust velocity is much higher than any chemical thruster can achieve, the spacecraft needs much less fuel to reach any given delta V.
Smart 1 was launched September 27, 2003. It will take up to sixteen months after its launch from Kourou, French Guiana, to maneuver into orbit with the moon, and several more weeks to move into a tight lunar orbit.
Once there, the satellite will use infrared light to search for frozen water, especially around the south pole, where some areas of the surface are never exposed to direct sunlight. The mission will also use X-ray spectrography to map the chemical composition of the entire lunar surface.
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