A custom-engineered spectrometer from Ocean Optics was launched into space on Thursday 18 June from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Alice, as the spectrometer is known, was drafted for the mission to help analyse the make-up of the lunar craters, with the goal of locating water below the moon's surface.
The Centaur rocket carrying Lcross is expected to reach the moon next week and the two will remain coupled for the next four months, until the next phase in the mission, scheduled for 9 October 2009.
The units will then separate, sending the rocket crashing into the moon.
After the rocket impact, another spacecraft carrying Alice will fly through, looking for signs of water and other compounds.
In partnership with Aurora Design and Technology, whose work included development of the reflectance viewing optics for the mission, Ocean Optics adapted its highly sensitive QE65000 spectrometer to survive the harsh conditions of this mission - extreme temperature ranges and radiation, as well as significant shock and vibration.
Alice will measure the reflectivity of the ejecta cloud as it rises into the sunlight, enabling scientists to distinguish between water vapour, water ice, and hydrated minerals (such as salts or clays) with molecularly bound water.
With a wavelength range of 270-650nm and an optical resolution of less than 1nm, Alice will be able to identify, with a high degree of accuracy, ionised water (visible at 619nm), OH radicals (visible at 308nm) and other organic molecules containing carbon.
Though the measurements are to be taken from the dark region of the moon where light is scarce, the unit's back-thinned detector makes the most of the light available.
Water hidden deep in the moon's craters could mean drinking water or even the ability to break down the hydrogen and oxygen molecules into rocket fuel, laying the foundation for the moon as a staging point for further space exploration.
