US space agency NASA said Friday that its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft completed its mission and crashed into the far side of the moon as planned.

The LADEE spacecraft lacked fuel to maintain a long-term lunar orbit or continue science operations and intentionally impacted the surface of the moon between 00:30 and 01:22 a.m. EDT Friday (0430 GMT and 0522 GMT), NASA said in a statement.

NASA engineers believed that the spacecraft, the size of a vending machine, broke apart, with most of its material heating up several hundred degrees or even vaporizing at the surface.

Any material that remained is likely buried in shallow craters, the space agency said.

"At the time of impact, LADEE was traveling at a speed of 3,600 miles (about 5,800 kilometers) per hour -- about three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet," said Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center.

"There's nothing gentle about impact at these speeds -- it's just a question of whether LADEE made a localized craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area."

In early April, the spacecraft was commanded to carry out maneuvers that would lower its closest approach to the lunar surface.

The new orbit brought LADEE to altitudes below one mile (1.6 kilometers) above the lunar surface, lower than most commercial airliners fly above Earth, enabling scientists to gather unprecedented science measurements.

On April 11, LADEE performed a final maneuver to ensure a trajectory that caused the spacecraft to impact the far side of the moon, which is not in view of Earth or near any previous lunar mission landings.

In the coming months, NASA engineers will use a lunar orbiter to photograph the impact site to determine the exact impact time.

"It's bittersweet knowing we have received the final transmission from the LADEE spacecraft after spending years building it in-house at Ames, and then being in constant contact as it circled the moon for the last several months," said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames.

Launched in Sept. 2013 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, LADEE began orbiting the moon Oct. 6 and gathering science data Nov. 10.

During its 100-day primary mission that ended in March, the spacecraft gathered detailed information about the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere.

Scientists also hope to use the data to look for the source of the mysterious pre-sunrise glow seen above the lunar horizon during several Apollo missions.

In addition, the mission has helped the agency test a system for two-way communication using laser instead of radio waves.