Montana Students Pick Winning Names for NASA GRAIL Moon Craft

Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the Moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011.

Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the Moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft provide scientists the exact measurements required as well as flow of information not interrupted when the spacecraft are at the lunar farside, not seen from Earth. The result should be the most accurate gravity map of the moon ever made. The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, including the size of a possible inner core, and it should provide scientists with a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. GRAIL is a part of NASA's Discovery Program. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The names were submitted by fourth graders from the Emily Dickinson Elementary School. Nearly 900 classrooms with more than 11,000 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia participated in the contest. Previously named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL-A and -B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft begin science operations in March, after a launch in September 2011.

"The 28 students of Nina DiMauro's class at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School have really hit the nail on the head," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. "We were really impressed that the students drew their inspiration by researching GRAIL and its goal of measuring gravity. Ebb and Flow truly capture the spirit and excitement of our mission."

Zuber and Sally Ride, America's first woman in space and CEO of Sally Ride Science in San Diego, selected the names following the contest, which attracted 890 proposals via the Internet. The contest invited ideas from students ages 5 to 18 enrolled in U.S. schools. Although everything from spelling and grammar to creativity was considered, Zuber and Ride primarily took into account the quality of submitted essays.

"With submissions from all over the United States and even some from abroad, there were a lot of great entries to review," Ride said. "This contest generated a great deal of excitement in classrooms across America, and along with it an opportunity to use that excitement to teach science."

GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students). Thousands of students in grades five through eight will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests for study to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego.

The winning prize for the Dickinson students is to choose the first camera images. Dickinson is one of nearly 2,000 schools registered for the MoonKAM program, which is led by Ride and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego.

"These spacecraft represent not only great science, but great inspiration for our future," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "As they study our lunar neighbor, Ebb and Flow will undergo nearly the same motion as the tides we feel here on Earth."

Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow will be placed in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometers). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

Read the winning submission. 
More information about MoonKAM.
More information about GRAIL.

NASA GRAIL Mission Videos: NASA's Moon-Bound GRAIL Mission prev1234next Title NASA's Moon-Bound GRAIL Mission Runtime 3:23 Views 19,391 Posted 25 Aug 2011 Description NASA's GRAIL precision flyers will determine the lunar structure from crust to c... Title Dark Side of the Moon - NASA GRAIL Mission First Video Runtime 0:58 Views 44,078 Posted 02 Feb 2012 Description NASA's GRAIL mission has beamed back its first video of the far side of the moon... Title NASA's GRAIL Spacecraft Launches on Lunar Mission Runtime 8:27 Views 36,401 Posted 10 Sep 2011 Description NASA's GRAIL spacecraft launched to the moon aboard a United Launch Alliance Del...

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Tagged with: Dickinson Elementary School • Discovery Program • Ebb And Flow • Emily Dickinson • Emily Dickinson Elementary School • Exact Measurements • First Woman In Space •

Filed under: Space Missions • The Moon

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