Photographer Joel Powell, with Spaceflight Magazine, captures a closeup of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, known as LCROSS, atop the Atlas V/Centaur rocket on Launch Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Around the pad are the lightning towers. LRO and LCROSS are the first missions in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon and begin establishing a lunar outpost by 2020. The LRO also includes seven instruments that will help NASA characterize the moon's surface: DIVINER, LAMP, LEND, LOLA , CRATER, Mini-RF and LROC. Launch is scheduled for 5:12 p.m. EDT June 18. Photo credit: NASA/Ken Thornsley
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