Artist's concept of LRO in orbit around the moon. Credit: NASA

Duration: LRO has a one-year exploration mission followed by a possible three-year science mission.
Mass: The total mass at launch is 1,916 kilograms (4,224 pounds). The dry mass is 1,018 kilograms (2,244 pounds), and fuel is 898 kilograms (1,980 pounds).
Power: Spacecraft power is 685 watts.
Dimensions: Stowed in the rocket (solar array and high-gain antenna folded up), LRO is 152 inches tall. LRO measures 103 inches from the instrument module to the stowed solar array and 108 inches from the stowed high-gain antenna to Mini-RF antenna. After launch, LRO's deployed solar array is 168 inches × 126 inches. The three panels together are 168 inches wide and extend out from the spacecraft 126 inches. The deployed high-gain antenna extends out 102 inches.
Fine Pointing: The spacecraft maintains pointing control to 60 arc seconds.
Solar Array: The spacecraft has articulated solar arrays and Li-ion battery.
Telemetry: Telemetry is Ka-band hi-rate downlink and S-band up/down low rate
Data Volume and Maximum Downlink Rate: The data volume is 461 Gb per day and downlink is 100 Mb per second.
Spacecraft Provider: The spacecraft was built by engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Orbit: The trip to the moon will take approximately four days. LRO will then enter an elliptical orbit, also called the commissioning orbit. From there, it will be moved into its final orbit — a circular polar orbit approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) above the moon's surface.
Mission Operations Center: The Mission Operations Center (MOC) resides at NASA Goddard Space Flight in Greenbelt, Md. Engineers at Goddard will control the spacecraft after separation, during lunar orbit insertion, and for mission operations. The MOC flows raw data to principal investigators.
Planetary Data System: Principal investigators will deliver instrument data to the Planetary Data System within six months after initial operations. The Planetary Data System is a publicly accessible repository of science data for planetary missions.
Project Cost: The project's life cost is approximately $500 million.

Instruments
CRaTER - The Principal Investigator is Dr. Harlan Spence, Boston University, Boston. The instrument mass is 5.4 kilograms (12 pounds) and the average power is 7.3 watts.
Diviner - The Principal Investigator is Dr. David Paige, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. The instrument mass is 11.0 kilograms (24 pounds) with average power of 24.7 watts.
LAMP - The Principal Investigator is Dr. Randy Gladstone, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas. The instrument mass is 6.1 kilograms (13 pounds) and the average power is 4.0 watts.
LEND - The Principal Investigator is Dr. Igor Mitrofanov, Institute for Space Research, Moscow, Russia. The instrument mass is 25.8 kilograms (57 pounds) and the average power is 11.6 watts.
LOLA - The Principal Investigator is Dr. David Smith, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The instrument mass is 11.3 kilograms (25 pounds) and the average power is 33.4 watts.
LROC - The Principal Investigator is Dr. Mark Robinson, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz. The instrument mass is 19.2 kilograms (42 pounds) and the average power is 24.0 watts.
Mini-RF - The Principal Investigator is Dr. Stewart Nozette, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston. The instrument mass is 13.8 kilograms (30 pounds) and the average power is 7.0 watts.

Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER)

The primary goal of CRaTER is to characterize the lunar radiation environment in terms of the different types of charged particles and their energies, particularly above 10 MeV. Radiation comes from the sun and beyond the Solar System (galactic cosmic rays). These data will allow scientists to determine the potential biological impacts of the radiation. CRaTER will also test models of radiation effects and shielding and measure radiation absorption by human tissue-like plastic, aiding in the development of protective technologies to help keep crews safe.

CRaTER measures the energy deposited by cosmic rays over a wide energy range behind different amounts of tissue-equivalent plastic (TEP). Radiation passing through the telescope, including ions and electrons, and to a lesser extent neutrons and gamma rays, loses energy while passing through silicon detectors and the TEP. When ionizing radiation passes through a detector a signal is produced that is proportional to the total energy lost in the detector. Detectors are in pairs, one thicker and one thinner, which when combined, provide measurements of the linear energy transfer (LET) over the range of 0.1 keV/μm to 2.2 MeV/μm, a range relevant to radiobiology. Measured LET is used to understand how radiation loss evolves in human tissue and how dose rates change during periods of heightened solar activity and ultimately over the course of the solar cycle. CRaTER will make the first direct, high-resolution measurements in deep space of the LET spectrum of energetic radiation. These data will be of major importance not only for human exploration but also for better understanding radiation effects in spacecraft systems.

Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (DLRE)

The objective of DLRE is to measure lunar surface temperatures at scales that provide essential information for future surface operations and exploration. The temperature of the lunar surface and subsurface is a critical environmental parameter for future human and robotic exploration. While the Apollo missions were all targeted to equatorial landing sites and were only conducted during the lunar day, NASA's new lunar exploration program will involve exploration of a much wider range of latitudes and astronaut stays of longer than two weeks. Both types of missions involve considerably more challenging thermal environments and will benefit greatly from a comprehensive global thermal mapping dataset that Diviner will provide. A key objective is to determine the temperatures within permanently shadowed areas, which would be well below 100 K (-279 degrees F), to understand the potential of these areas to harbor water ice. Orbital thermal mapping measurements also provide detailed information on surface parameters such as composition, hazards, rough terrain, or rocks.

The Diviner instrument will be able to determine surface temperatures to within 5 degrees C across areas as small as 300 m using 9 different wavelengths between 7 and 200 microns. The structure consists of an optics bench assembly, a motor driven elevation/azimuth yoke, and an instrument mount. The optics bench holds all of the optical subassemblies (the mirrors and detectors) and is suspended from the yoke. Motors on the yoke allow the instrument to be pointed in different directions and scan across the surface. The instrument is temperature controlled. Radiometric calibration is provided by viewing of blackbody and solar targets mounted on the yoke.

Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP)

The goal of the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) is to map the entire lunar surface in the far ultraviolet part of the spectrum. LAMP will search for surface ice and frost in the polar regions and provide images of permanently shadowed regions, illuminated only by starlight and the glow of interplanetary hydrogen emission, known as the Lyman Alpha line.

LAMP is an imaging ultraviolet spectrometer based on an instrument that is currently on its way to Pluto (the ALICE UV spectrometer). The instrument detects ultraviolet light between 1,200 - 1,800 Å. Building up data over the course of the mission will allow surface resolutions of a few kilometers with high signal-to-noise ratio.

Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND)

The Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) will measure the neutron flux from the moon from thermal energies up to 15 MeV. LEND will create maps of surface and subsurface (down to ~1 meter) hydrogen distribution by measuring the epithermal neutron flux (0.4 eV-100 eV) with high-spatial resolution (10 km Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM)). LEND will be able to detect hydrogen in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar poles that may be water ice. Detection of water ice deposits will identify a critical resource for the future long-term human presence on the moon. LEND will also gather information about the neutron component of the lunar radiation environment, also extremely important for its impact on astronaut health.

LEND is a neutron spectrometer similar to another instrument, the High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND) that has been operating around Mars since 2001 on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The neutrons measured by these instruments are formed by cosmic-ray interactions with the planetary surface. If hydrogen is present, it will change the energy spectrum of those neutrons, providing quantitative information on hydrogen distribution. Unlike HEND, LEND is designed with a passive collimator that provides high spatial resolution (10 km FWHM) of neutron emission at the lunar surface. No other neutron instrument with this imaging capability has ever flown in space.

Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA)

The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) investigation will provide a precise global lunar topographic model and geodetic grid that will serve as the framework to enable precise target location, safe landing, and surface mobility to carry out exploratory activities. LOLA will also characterize the polar illumination environment by mapping the details of the topography, and image permanently shadowed polar regions of the moon to identify possible locations of surface ice crystals in shadowed polar craters.

Building on our previous experiences on the moon and Mars, we now know that topography at scales from local to global is necessary for landing safely. In addition, it preserves the record of the evolution of the surface that contributes to decisions as to where to explore.

The LOLA instrument pulses a single laser at 1,064 nm wavelength laser, splitting the output into five beams that illuminates surface 28 times per second. For each beam, LOLA measures time of flight (range), pulse spreading (surface roughness), and transmit/return energy (surface reflectance). This allows the topography to be determined, along with an indication of whether the surface is rough or smooth at small scales and any changes in the surface brightness. With its two dimensional spot pattern, LOLA unambiguously determines slopes along and across the orbit track.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC)

LROC is designed to address two of the prime LRO measurement requirements: (1) Assess meter scale features to facilitate selection of future landing sites on the moon, and (2) acquire images of the poles every orbit to characterize the polar illumination environment (100-meter scale), identifying regions of permanent shadow and permanent or near-permanent illumination throughout a full lunar year. In addition to these two main objectives, the LROC team plans to conduct meter-scale mapping of polar regions, 3-dimensional observations to enable derivation of meter-scale surface features, global multispectral imaging, and production of a global landform map. LROC will also reimage sites photographed during Apollo to measure recent meteorite impact rates and better understand the potential hazard from these impacts.

LROC consists of two narrow-angle cameras (NACs) to provide 0.5 meter scale panchromatic images over a 5-km swath, a wide-angle camera (WAC) to provide images at a scale of 100 meter in seven color bands over a 60-km swath, and a Sequence and Compressor System (SCS) supporting data acquisition for both cameras. LROC is a modified version of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's ConTeXt Camera (CTX) and MARs Color Imager (MARCI) provided by Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) in San Diego, Calif.

Mini-RF

Mini-RF on LRO will provide observations of the permanently shadowed areas by using radar illumination of the surface at resolutions of 30 and 150 meters. The returned data will also be used to define the manner in which the radar energy is scattered and reflected back to the spacecraft. Depending upon the characteristics of the reflected energy, it will be possible to determine if ice is present in significant quantities in the areas of permanent shadow. Because radar uses wavelengths of 8-12 GHz (X band) and 2 GHz (S band) it is sensitive to surface roughness (rocks) and can be used to map rock distribution. A less advanced version of this instrument is being flown on the Chandrayaan-1 mission and those data will be used to guide the higher resolution and more advanced measurements made by Mini-RF.

The Mini-RF is a technology demonstration of an advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR), capable of measurements in X-band and S-band. Mini-RF will demonstrate new lightweight SAR communication technologies and locate potential water ice. The Mini-RF instrument consists of electronic boxes and an antenna. The antenna is mounted on the side of the spacecraft and it points at an angle of 50 degrees. An image is produced by the motion of the spacecraft.