Nasa's Ladee mission is part of a resurgence of interest in the Moon and it is all down to the fact that we barely understand our cosmic neighbour.
You would be forgiven for thinking that America lost interest in the Moon forty years ago, in December 1972, when Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan left the final footprint on its dusty surface. It's certainly true that in the 1970s and 80s there was little desire to return to our grey, cratered cosmic neighbour. In fact during the 1980s no-one sent a single spacecraft, robot or orbiter. Thanks to Apollo, American scientists had an enormous pile of lunar rocks to study, Nasa's attention had switched to the Space Shuttle and the Soviets had run out of money.
But in recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in studying the Moon in order to tackle some of the many unanswered scientific questions. In the last decade, Europe, Japan, China and India have all sent unmanned orbiters to probe the Moon's chemical composition, gravitational field and topography. Among other things, they've proved the presence of water, discovered potentially useful minerals and uncovered evidence that the Moon may still be geologically active. Now, later this year, the US will be launching its fourth mission since 2009: Ladee.
For the rest of the story: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130411-solving-a-moon-mystery
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