SMART-1 from Conception to Moon Impact

This paper provides an overview of the SMART-1 project from cradle to grave: from its conception in 1997, launch on 27 September 2003, moon arrival on 11 November 2004, until its impact on the moon surface on 3 September 2006. It is necessarily kept to a sufficiently high level to contain its length, but it is intended to give enough information to provide the basis for those readers who intend to deepen their knowledge in more focused papers in this journal or in the references provided. At the time of writing, the project has been completed for more than one year and I can see, with some historical perspective, all the events that lead to this globally very successful mission. Obviously, the emphasis given to certain topics now is rather different from what it was when the issue was just discovered, but I believe that the reader is more interested in learning the objective facts and how they actually affected the mission performance.