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23-536: Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was GRAIL's principal investigator. NASA 's Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed the project. NASA budgeted US$ 496 million for the program to include spacecraft and instrument development, launch, mission operations, and science support. Upon launch the spacecraft were named GRAIL A and GRAIL B and a contest was opened to school children to select names. Nearly 900 classrooms from 45 states, Puerto Rico and

46-480: A lower altitude, of data collection began 31 August 2012, and was followed by 12 months of data analysis. On 5 December 2012 NASA released a gravity map of the Moon made from GRAIL data. The knowledge acquired will aid understanding of the evolutionary history of the terrestrial planets and computations of lunar orbits. Thrusters aboard each spacecraft were capable of producing 22 newtons (4.9 lb f ). Each spacecraft

69-526: A period of about 114 minutes. The spacecraft were operated over the 88-day acquisition phase, divided into three 27.3 day long nadir -pointed mapping cycles. Twice each day there was an 8-hour pass in view of the Deep Space Network for transmission of science and "E/PO MoonKam" data. The first student-requested MoonKam images were taken by Ebb from 2012 March 15–17 and downlinked to Earth March 20. More than 2,700 schools spanning 52 countries were using

92-459: Is a fellow of the following professional societies: The asteroid 6635 Zuber, which orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter , is named for Zuber. Maria Zuber CV (PDF) Philolaus (crater) Philolaus is a lunar impact crater that is located in the northern part of the Moon 's near side. It lies within one crater diameter to the east-southeast of the flooded crater Anaximenes , and to

115-625: Is an American geophysicist who is the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics at Brown University and a current trustee. Zuber has been involved in more than half a dozen NASA planetary missions aimed at mapping the Moon , Mars , Mercury , and several asteroids . She was the principal investigator for the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission, which was managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory . Since January 2021, Zuber serves as co-chair of President Joe Biden 's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). She

138-480: The GRAIL mission components that would capture the imagination of young students. A student contest provided the names for the mission's two spacecraft, Ebb and Flow, and students can sign up to use GRAIL's Moon Knowledge Acquired ( MoonKAM ) by Middle school students. In January 2021, Zuber was appointed co-chair of President-elect Joe Biden 's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Zuber

161-526: The University of Pennsylvania in 1980; she was the first person in her family to attend college . Zuber earned Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees, both in geophysics, from Brown University in 1983 and 1986 respectively. Reflecting on her decision to apply to Ivy League graduate schools and not MIT, Zuber joked "I remember saying, I don't want to go to any nerd school... and of course, I'm the biggest nerd there is." Zuber later worked at Johns Hopkins University and

184-508: The District of Columbia, participated in the contest. The winning names, Ebb and Flow, were suggested by 4th grade students at Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Montana . Each spacecraft transmitted and received telemetry from the other spacecraft and Earth-based facilities. By measuring the change in distance between the two spacecraft, the gravity field and geological structure of

207-523: The Moon produced by her laser altimeters on the Mars Global Surveyor and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft are more accurate than that of Earth. She has been a team member on 10 NASA planetary missions, including Mars Global Surveyor , Dawn , and MESSENGER . Zuber became interested in planetary science at an early age. A desire to spread her childhood enthusiasm was one reason why she teamed up with former astronaut Sally Ride to include in

230-399: The Moon was obtained. The two spacecraft were able to detect very small changes in the distance between one another. Changes in distance as small as one micrometre were detectable and measurable. The gravitational field of the Moon was mapped in unprecedented detail. The data collection phase of the mission lasted from 7 March 2012 to 29 May 2012, for a total of 88 days. A second phase, at

253-460: The Moon, GRAIL made use of a three- to four-month low-energy trans-lunar cruise well outside the Moon's orbit and passing near the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1 before looping back to rendezvous with the Moon. This extended and circuitous trajectory enabled the mission to reduce fuel requirements, protect instruments and reduce the velocity of the two spacecraft at lunar arrival to help achieve

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276-646: The MoonKAM cameras. Flow's MoonKam camera captured LRO as it flew by at a distance of about 12 miles (20 km) on May 3. It's the first footage of a moon-orbiting robotic spacecraft taken by another one. At the end of the science phase and a mission extension, the spacecraft were powered down and decommissioned over a five-day period. The spacecraft impacted the lunar surface on December 17, 2012. Both spacecraft impacted an unnamed lunar mountain between Philolaus and Mouchez at 75°37′N 26°38′W  /  75.62°N 26.63°W  / 75.62; -26.63 . Ebb ,

299-452: The crash site will be named after GRAIL collaborator and first American woman in space, Sally Ride . Gravity passes through matter. In addition to surface mass, a high-resolution gravity field gives a blurred, but useful, look below the surface. Analyses of the GRAIL data have produced a series of scientific results for the Moon. Maria Zuber Maria T. Zuber (born June 27, 1958)

322-464: The crater has a complex system of terraces with a sharp-edged rim in locations where slumping has occurred. On the exterior of the rim is an outer rampart that extends outwards for nearly half a crater diameter in all directions. The crater has a ray system , and is consequently mapped as part of the Copernican System . The interior floor is irregular with rough areas about the center and to

345-433: The extremely low 50 km (31 mi) orbits with separation between the spacecraft (arriving 25 hours apart) of 175 to 225 km (109 to 140 mi). The very tight tolerances in the flight plan left little room for error correction leading to a launch window lasting one second and providing only two launch opportunities per day. The primary science phase of GRAIL lasted for 88 days, from 7 March 2012 to 29 May 2012. It

368-483: The lead spacecraft in formation, impacted first. Flow impacted moments later. Each spacecraft was traveling at 3,760 miles per hour (1.68 km/s). A final experiment was conducted during the final days of the mission. Main engines aboard the spacecraft were fired, depleting remaining fuel. Data from that effort will be used by mission planners to validate fuel consumption computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions. NASA has announced that

391-401: The northeast. There is no single central peak, but rather a pair of peaks offset to the south and the east of the middle. There is also a smaller ridge pair offset to the northwest. The flattest part of the interior floor is in the northeast of the crater interior. The floor is not significantly marked by impacts. By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on

414-648: The position of the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Zuber's professional focus has been on the structure and tectonics of solid solar system objects. She is a pioneer in the measurement of the shapes of the surfaces of the inner planets, and in interpreting what those shapes mean for internal structure and dynamics, thermal history, and surface-atmosphere interactions. She specializes in using gravity and laser altimetry measurements to determine interior structure and evolution. The topographic maps of Mars and

437-405: The west of the smaller Anaxagoras . It overlies the older and heavily worn Philolaus C to the south. This crater retains a well-defined form that has not changed significantly since it was originally created. The outer rim edge is roughly circular, but with a somewhat irregular edge that displays signs of slumping. The most notable slump is a triangular area along the eastern rim. The inner wall of

460-523: Was a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland . She joined the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1995 and was the head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2012. She was the first woman to lead a science department at MIT. From 2012, she was vice president for research at MIT, where she also held

483-542: Was followed by a second science phase that ran from 8 Aug 2012 into early Dec 2012. The gravity mapping technique was similar to that used by Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), and the spacecraft design was based on XSS-11 . The orbital insertion dates were December 31, 2011  ( 2011-12-31 ) (for GRAIL-A) and January 1, 2012  ( 2012-01-01 ) (for GRAIL-B). The initial lunar orbits were highly elliptical near-polar, and were later lowered to near-circular at about 25-86 km altitude with

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506-551: Was fueled with 103.5 kilograms (228 lb) of hydrazine to be used by the thrusters and main engine to enable the spacecraft to enter lunar orbit and transition to the science phase of its mission. The propulsion subsystem consisted of a main fuel tank and a Re-repressurization system which were activated shortly after lunar orbit insertion. All times are in EDT ( UTC -4). Unlike the Apollo program missions, which took three days to reach

529-717: Was previously a member of the National Science Board. Maria T. Zuber was born on June 27, 1958, in Norristown, Pennsylvania . She grew up in Summit Hill, Pennsylvania , in Pennsylvania's Coal Region , one of five children of Joseph and Dolores (Stoffa) Zuber. She has three brothers, Joseph Jr., Stephen, and Andrew (1966–2018), and a sister, Joanne. Both her grandfathers were coal miners and contracted black lung disease . Zuber received her B.A. in astronomy and geology from

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