Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Spacecraft· NASAactive

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — NASA's lunar mapper (since 2009), circling the Moon in a low polar orbit to image the surface in fine detail, measure its terrain and scout landing sites for the Artemis era.

Open in 3D viewSee Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in the live, interactive 3D map

Key facts

Current speed

28.9 km/s

Distance from Sun

1.01 AU

Status

Active

Launched

2009

Mission & specifications

Mission

Operator: NASA
Launched: June 18, 2009
Status: Active

Trajectory

Current speed: 28.9 km/s
Distance from the Sun: 1.01 AU
Distance from Earth: 0.105 AU
Distance from Venus: 0.572 AU

Mission

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has quietly become one of the most productive spacecraft ever flown, redrawing our maps of the Moon and laying the groundwork for humanity's return. Launched in 2009 into a low polar orbit, it has circled the Moon for more than fifteen years, its cameras and instruments assembling the most detailed atlas of another world ever made. LRO's images are sharp enough to pick out the Apollo landing sites — the descent stages, the experiments, even the tracks left by boots and rovers — settling idle doubts with simple photographs. But its real work is practical: mapping the Moon's terrain to the metre, measuring temperatures in the permanently shadowed polar craters cold enough to trap water ice, and hunting for the safest, most resource-rich places to land. That search has become urgent. As the Artemis programme prepares to send astronauts back to the surface — this time to stay — LRO is the scout that goes ahead, charting the south-polar terrain where the first crews will land and where buried ice might one day supply water, air and fuel. Built for a single year of reconnaissance, it has instead become a long-lived lunar sentinel, watching over the Moon as a new era of exploration begins.

2009Launch to the MoonLaunch
NASA's lunar mapper begins the journey to a low polar orbit.
2009Into lunar orbitArrival
LRO settles into the polar orbit it has held ever since.
2011The Apollo sites, seen againMilestone
Cameras resolve the descent stages, instruments and bootprints left by the Apollo crews.
2019Scouting the polar iceMilestone
Mapping the cold, shadowed south-polar craters where water ice may await Artemis.

Images

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — NASA (public domain) · Wikimedia Commons

The Moon in 3-D — NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University · NASA Image Library

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LRO Artist Concept — NASA/JPL · NASA Image Library

Alphonsus Crater Mantled Floor Fracture — NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University · NASA Image Library

Mapping Lunar Highlands — NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPGP · NASA Image Library

Rimae Prinz Region - Constellation Region of Interest — NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University · NASA Image Library

Marius Hills Pit -- Lava Tube Skylight? — NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University · NASA Image Library

NASA Releases First Interactive Mosaic of Lunar North Pole — NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University · NASA Image Library

Images from open archives · credit shown per image