images

SMART-1 - Artist view

by

ESA/J.Huart/Novapix

Reference

e-son16-01501

Date

2007-01-31

SMART-1 is the first of ESA's Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology. It travelled to the Moon using solar-electric propulsion and carrying a battery of miniaturised instruments. As well as testing new technology, SMART-1 did the first comprehensive inventory of key chemical elements in the lunar surface. It also investigated the theory that the Moon was formed following the violent collision of a smaller planet with Earth, four and a half thousand million years ago.