Last minute tweak keeps Europe's first lunar mission on course

BERLIN Europe's first mission to the moon got a scare Saturday, but ground controllers were able make a last-minute course correction that kept the European Space Agency craft from prematurely hitting a lunar crater's rim.

Mission officials said they raised the low point of the SMART-1 spacecraft by 600 meters (2,000 feet) by using its positioning thrusters to avoid the 1.5 kilometer-high (almost mile-high) rim.

The maneuver began at about 1 a.m.(2300 GMT Friday) from mission control in Darmstadt and was completed about three hours later, said Octavio Camino, spacecraft operations chief for the mission.

"We have got confirmation that the maneuver was successful," Camino said.

The craft had been orbiting lower and lower ahead of Sunday's impact, which they hope to study from earth for clues to the composition of the moon's surface in that area.

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