NASA has recently concluded the mission of its Lunar Trailblazer on July 31. Despite significant attempts by mission teams to re-establish contact, communication was lost the day after the launch on February 26, leaving operators unable to regain two-way dialogue with the spacecraft.
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Lunar Trailblazer was created to map water across the lunar surface at high resolution—aiming to discover where water exists, its forms, and its fluctuations over time. These findings were set to enhance future lunar explorations, both robotic and human, while also aiding commercial enterprises and advancing our understanding of water’s cycle in space.
The satellite took flight with the second phase of Intuitive Machines’ robotic lunar lander mission, known as IM-2, on February 26 at 7:16 p.m. EST, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Approximately 48 minutes after liftoff, the plan was executed perfectly when the tiny satellite detached from the rocket. Communication was successfully established at 8:13 p.m. EST, but sadly, contact vanished the very next day.
Due to the inability to communicate with the spacecraft, the team couldn’t effectively analyze its condition or perform the necessary thruster actions to maintain Lunar Trailblazer’s designated flight path.
In the words of Nicky Fox, who is part of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, “Engaging in ambitious missions like Lunar Trailblazer often ignites groundbreaking scientific endeavors. While this result wasn’t what we aimed for, the experiences gained from such missions equip us for future small satellite projects, ensuring we’re better prepared for sustained human activity on the moon. Kudos to the Lunar Trailblazer team for their relentless dedication!”
Initial data from the mission hinted that the spacecraft’s solar panels weren’t correctly aligned with the sun, resulting in battery drainage.
In the weeks that followed, various global partners, many acting as volunteers, worked to intercept the spacecraft’s radio signals and note its position. Ground radar and optical assessments showed that Lunar Trailblazer was slowly spinning further into deep space.
“As the spacecraft drifted away from the moon, we suspected that the solar panels might eventually angle to catch more sunlight, which could have recharged the batteries, allowing communication to be restored,” mentioned Andrew Klesh from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Global collaboration in space efforts is crucial—it was vital for providing the best chance of reconnecting with the satellite.”
However, as time went by, Lunar Trailblazer drifted too far out, rendering any telecommunication signals too weak for recovery operations.
The Technological Aftermath
The High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) onboard was designed by JPL to pinpoint and chart water and mineral deposits on the lunar surface. Another tool, the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), developed by the University of Oxford, aimed to gather temperature readings to analyze silicate rocks and soil—helping scientists understand variations in water content over time.
Bethany Ehlmann, the principal investigator for the mission at Caltech, expressed disappointment over the spacecraft not reaching the moon, but remarked, “The scientific instruments we constructed, along with our collaborative teams, are of unparalleled talent. What we’ve learned and the technologies we’ve birthed will inevitably influence future endeavors within the planetary science community as research on lunar water progresses.”
Some of these advanced technologies will be carried forward in NASA’s JPL Ultra Compact Imaging Spectrometer for the Moon (UCIS-moon), recently chosen for an upcoming flight chance. This instrument is said to share design similarities with HVM3 and hopes to provide the best spatial data regarding water and mineral distributions on the moon.
Provided by NASA
This piece was initially featured on Phys.org.
