New Video Shows the GRAIL MoonKAM's Final Looks at the Moon

By Nancy Atkinson - January 10, 2013 08:13 PM UTC | Planetary Science

As a fond farewell, here are some of the final images taken by the GRAIL MoonKAM educational cameras on board Ebb and Flow, the twin spacecraft for the mission. This footage was shot just three days prior to when the mission ended with the planned impacts on a rim of a crater near the lunar north pole. At that point in the mission, the spacecraft had lowered their orbit to only about 11 km above the lunar surface. While these images aren't of the highest of resolution, they provide a great sense of what it would be like to orbit close to the Moon. Additionally, they are an inspiration to school children. With MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) the cameras took more than 115,000 total images of the lunar surface, and imaging targets were proposed by middle school students from across the country and the resulting images returned for them to study.

The two probes were purposely crashed into the Moon because they no longer had enough altitude or fuel to continue science operations.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com