NASA Declares Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter a Success

At a teleconference held on June 21, 2011, NASA declared that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission has been a complete success, providing a sharper, more detailed view of the Moon than has ever been available before.

LRO, which was launched in 2009, is now in orbit 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface of the Moon, where it continues to take photographs and perform measurements of the lunar surface

The first year of the mission consisted of an exploration phase, in which LRO scouted the surface of Moon to look for possible sites for a lunar space station.

In its second year, LRO began making general scientific observations.

LRO has transmitted over 192 terabytes of data, maps and images - enough to fill almost 41,000 DVDs.

During its exploration phase, LRO photographed almost 5.7 million square kilometers of the lunar surface.