At 6:50 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8 the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft successfully separated from the Centaur that has been attached to since early June 2009, when the LCROSS and LRO were stacked at Space Launch Complex 41, a few days before launch from Cape Canaveral. After the separation sequence was initiated, sensors attached to three break wires indicated a successful separation.
After the separation, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft completed a 180 degree flip maneuver and powered up the science payload to watch the Centaur steadily increase the distance between them. Mission operations then commanded the spacecraft to perform a breaking burn to create a separation distance of 600 km from the Centaur, This was determined by the science team as the optimal distance to view the Centaur on the surface of the moon.
View a video of the Centaur separation