NASA announced that the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) has successfully completed its mission and has reached the surface of the moon sometime between 9:30 and 10:22 p.m. PDT on Thursday, April 17.

LADEE is being controlled by the ground crew of the agency's Ames Research Center located in Moffett Field, Calif. The spacecraft did not contain enough fuel to continue orbiting the moon and the controllers intentionally made LADEE impact the moon's surface. Its orbit naturally degraded after it was flown at a very low altitude as it completed its final mission.

"At the time of impact, LADEE was traveling at a speed of 3,600 miles per hour - about three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet," LADEE project scientist at Ames, Rick Elphicsaid in a press release. "There's nothing gentle about impact at these speeds - it's just a question of whether LADEE made a localized craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area. It will be interesting to see what kind of feature LADEE has created."

The impact caused LADEE to disintegrate and most of its parts heated up or vaporized due to the extreme heat. The engineers believed that if ever there were remaining intact materials, these would be buried in the moon's craters.

During the first week of April, LADEE's orbit was lowered to its closest distance to the moon's surface. This lowered orbit is around a mile above the surface, a distance lower than the orbits of most communication satellites that we have here at Earth. On April 11, ground controllers made LADEE's final maneuver and sent it to impact the far side of the moon.

LADEE demonstrated its versatility and durability when it survived the lunar eclipse that happened on April 14 to 15. It also survived extreme temperatures and battery drain.

Mission controllers will try to get images of the impact site from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to see what happened to the spacecraft.

"It's bittersweet knowing we have received the final transmission from the LADEE spacecraft after spending years building it in-house at Ames, and then being in constant contact as it circled the moon for the last several months," LADEE project manager at Ames, Butler Hine said in a press release.