Tests on a UK-led technology at the heart of a planned Moon mission have been a spectacular success, according to the experts involved in the project.

Three penetrator missiles were fired into a sand bunker in Wales, designed to mimic the lunar surface.

Professor Alan Smith, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, told BBC News the results had exceeded expectations.

He is a leading figure in the Moonlite mission, which hopes to fire instruments into the Moon in 2013.

A BBC team witnessed the final day of the tests at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) test site at Pendine, near Tenby.

The site has been open since 1940 but is now operated by Qinetiq, the privatised MoD spin-off company which developed the penetrator technology.

Three projectiles were tested on three consecutive days at the end of May.

They look like missiles but, rather than exploding on impact, they are designed to stay intact to protect the scientific instruments inside.