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Liftoff of Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft blasts off for the Moon in 2009. Also aboard the Atlas V rocket was LCROSS, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite. Mission planners deliberately crashed the rocket’s upper stage into the Moon's kicking up a cloud of debris and water vapor. LCROSS flew through the plume and detected the water before impacting a few minutes later. NASA