NASA Anniversary 2017: Reconnaissance Orbiter Celebrates 100 Days on Moon

This year, October not only marks Halloween, the start of Dia de Los Muertos and the end Octoberfest (which technically starts in September, but let’s put a pin in that for now), it also marks the NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s 100th day on the moon. Keep in mind, this is using a complicated definition of the word “day.”

I’d vacation on the moon if I could, it would never end!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YkoSxFc1wo

Those who keep up with astronomy may remember that the orbiter was launched on June 18, 2009, so you might wonder why it took so long to reach the 100-day milestone. Now, the timing is a bit complicated, since it is not 100 days from our perspective, but from the moon’s perspective, as days on the moon are longer. To put it into context, a lunar day is 708.7 hours or 29.53 Earth days.
Given the complicated nature of comparing the time between the earth and the moon, we can understand why NASA celebrated the 100-day mark instead of waiting for the orbiter’s annual lunar birthday.
The orbiter was originally going to last only a year (presumably an Earth year), but received various extensions over the years, according to Space.com.