Students rename GRAIL spacecraft, call it “Ebb and Flow"

• Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the Moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Montana. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011.
• GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students). Thousands of students in grades five through eight will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests for study to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego.
• Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow will be placed in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometres). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the Moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed.