15 years ago: America’s first step of a lasting return to the Moon. ⁣ ⁣ NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) successfully launched together on June 18, 2009, on a ULALaunch Atlas V rocket. ⁣ At the Moon, LRO gathered information on day-night temperature maps, contributed data for a global geodetic grid, and conducted high-resolution imaging. In November 2011, NASA released the highest resolution near-topographical map of the Moon ever created, showing surface features over nearly the entire Moon. An interactive mosaic of the lunar north pole was published in March 2014. Today, LRO is still gathering data on our celestial neighbor in preparation for #Artemis human landing missions. ⁣ ⁣ As planned, LCROSS and its Centaur stage impacted the Moon on Oct. 9, 2009. The twin impacts exposed a plume of material from inside a crater that might not have seen direct sunlight for billions of years. LCROSS and LRO found evidence that...