NASA's Moon Mission Postponed to Saturday

The launch of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) carrying delta 2 rocket has been postponed by one day.

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission features twin spacecraft embarking on a challenging mission to map the Moon's gravity.

GRAIL's primary science objectives are to determine the structure of the lunar interior, from crust to core, and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the Moon.

Both spacecrafts will carry a set of cameras to the moon as part of MoonKam, a project headed by former astronaut Sally Ride. The cameras will offer middle-school students the chance to request photography of lunar targets for classroom study. This will mark the first time a NASA planetary mission has carried instruments expressly for an education and public outreach project.

"Trying to understand how the Moon was formed, and how it evolved over its history, is one of the things we're trying to address with the GRAIL mission. But also, (we're) trying to understand how the Moon is an example of how terrestrial planets in general have formed," Maria Zuber, principal investigator for GRAIL from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a statement.

The GRAIL mission will not only reveal information about the Moon's thermal history, but how the inner, rocky planets formed as well. Mostly, however, it will be about the moon. As Zuber says, "it will explore the moon from crust to core."

This delay is to allow additional time to review the data. The previous attempt was scrubbed due to upper level winds.

The launch now is planned for Saturday, Sept,10.