The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun firing its engines in a maneuver that should place it in orbit around the moon. The burn is scheduled to last 40 minutes and use about half of the nearly 2,000 pounds of fuel the spacecraft launched with on Thursday.
"Thrusters all look good," a mission controller said at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
"Everything looks nominal," said another.
LRO is less than 400 miles from the moon's surface.
It will start out in an elliptical orbit for two months to turn on its seven science instruments, then drop to a circular polar orbit just 31 miles above the lunar surface.
Image: NASA animation.
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