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Near the Moon's eastern limb lies Mare Crisium — the Sea of Crises — a low basalt plain embayed by rugged mountains. Carved by a colossal impact some 3.9 billion years ago, the 460-mile-wide (740 kilometers) mare appears largely flat and featureless. But lingering whispers of a volcanic past are everywhere, from its ubiquitous darkness to craters flooded and semi-obliterated by ancient basalt lavas — and a curious, solitary landmark near its center: the four-mile wide (6.4 km) Mons Latreille.
Soon, a robotic craft called Blue Ghost will land here, carrying 10 science instruments and technology tests as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Also known as Blue Ghost Mission 1 and nicknamed Ghost Riders in the Sky, the lander is targeting a six-day launch window in mid-January. NASA announced Jan. 7 that the first scheduled launch opportunity is 1:11 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
Mare Crisium bears witness to an active past: long, sinuous ridges snaking across its eastern hinterlands, ghostly shadows of ancient craters and the capelike spit of Promontorium Agarum abutting its southeastern rim. Wider than the state of Arizona, the mare boasts a land area of 68,000 square miles (176,000 square km) — on par with Oklahoma.
Six decades ago, even as Russia lost its space race with the U.S. when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin triumphantly walked at Tranquillity Base in July 1969, the Soviets entertained a last-ditch gasp for glory by bringing a lunar sample back to Earth first.
As Armstrong and Aldrin slept in the hours after their historic moonwalk, Russia's Luna 15 robotic probe attempted to land in Crisium, 344 miles (554 km) northeast of their landing site. But it hit a mountain during descent and was destroyed.
Another try in 1974 saw Luna 23 land too fast and topple over. But in 1976, Luna 24 safely returned 0.37 pound (170 grams) of Crisium soil to the eager hands of Russian scientists. Those samples inconclusively hinted at the presence of 0.1 percent water by mass.
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