Artist view of ESA's SMART-1 lunar probe

Artist view of ESA's SMART-1 lunar probe being released from the upper stage of its generic Ariane 5G launch vehicle. The 350-kg spacecraft, developed for ESA by Swedish Space Corporation, is due for launch in September 2003 on Ariane V162. It will be flown inside a specific cylindrical adapter below the lower of the two primary payloads, inside a standard Sylda dual launch adapter. SMART-1 will be the third spacecraft deployed on the mission, its co-passengers being India's Insat 3E and Eutelsat's e-Bird communication satellites. As the first Small Mission for Advanced Research in Technology of the Horizon 2000 space science plan, SMART-1 will demonstrate innovative and key technologies for scientific deep-space missions. One of these key technologies is the solar electric propulsion used as primary propulsion. SMART-1's primary propulsion is provided by a 70-mN thrust PPS-1350 stationary plasma thruster developed by Snecma Moteurs. Solar electric primary propulsion (SEPP) is envisioned for future ESA missions like the BepiColombo probe to Mercury. Other technologies to be demonstrated onboard SMART-1 include Li-ion batteries, deep space X-Ka and laser data links, swept charge device X-ray detector and autonomous onboard software. SMART-1 will be released in geostationary transfer orbit and will use SEPP to reach the Moon. Once in lunar orbit, SMART-1 will conduct a geochemistry and mineralogical survey of the Moon.