European Moon Mission Ready for Launch

merryprankster writes "Europe's first mission to the Moon is set for blast off from Kourou in French Guiana just after midnight, local time, on Sunday. SMART 1 will study the composition of lunar rock through X-ray observations. The probe uses a new solar electric propulsion system which converts solar energy its panels into motion via the expulsion of ions. Details at the ESA mission site."

Comments

Re:Why so nationalistic?

[ChuckDivine]

More players means more ways of doing things. Cooperation can be good -- but so can competition. Competition allows various new technologies and ideas to be tried. A cooperative monopoly can strangle a field.

Possibly the biggest problem with NASA is that it has stifled innovation in the field. When one organization dominates a field the way NASA does, it's difficult to get alternative ways of doing things developed. The dominant group dismisses out of hand any thing they haven't developed. They tend to drive off independently minded people. Problems go unnoticed for longer periods of time.

Many of us welcome competition for NASA -- be it private or governmental. I salute ESA for it's independence -- and for trying out ion propulsion.

ION engines not really valid for short missions.

[Shivetya]

While it is nice to see ION engines gain more momentum in the industry do they really have a place in short duration/distance missions?

If its passed off a as a proof of concept it would make more sense but the article doesn't imply that.

Considering the limited distance it would probably been more efficient to use an established propulsion system and get the scientific results sooner. Now, because of their choice any findings are unnecessarily delayed.

On a high note, its good to see they are not replicating the work done by the previous NASA probe - seems scienctists are much better at getting along than their governments.