The first lunar research mission in 25 years, Prospector is designed to provide the first global maps of the Moon's elemental surface composition such as various minerals and water concentrations and its gravitational and magnetic fields. The data collected by Prospector will be transmitted via telemetry back to Earth and collected at Ames for analysis.
Viewers can also check parameters of the satellite itself.
The data is relayed from the satellite which has no onboard computer or storage to Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. According to Deardorff, one of the challenges in putting together these web pages was finding a way to show the data in real time in any meaningful way. The data is coming hopefully every 32 seconds as a bunch of numbers. Deardorff created a Java applet that automatically updates the charts. There are no current provisions for a web archive of the Prospector data.