BOULDER — Although the instrument itself is tiny, seeing it launched toward the moon Friday night was cause for big celebration at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
About 60 LASP researchers and their friends and family members gathered at the lab on CU’s east campus to watch a live feed of NASA’s launch of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer.
Aboard the probe, which was launched from a Virginia flight facility at 9:27 p.m. Mountain time, is a $6 million instrument designed and built by LASP scientists to provide data on the presence, means of transport and other properties of lunar dust particles.
The Lunar Dust Experiment instrument, or LDEX, is about the size of a toaster.
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