Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Caltech-led Lunar Trailblazer mission on the prowl to probe the abundance, distribution of water on the Moon, as well as the lunar water cycle.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin

A spacecraft to help sort out the availability and nature of water ice on the Moon is on the fritz.

The NASA/Caltech Lunar Trailblazer was successfully deployed on February 26 as a ride share payload from a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. It is designed to circuit the Moon in patrol mode to detect signatures of ice in reflected light, pinpointing the locales of ice or water trapped in rock at the Moon’s surface.

Mission operators at Caltech in Pasadena, California, established communications with the small satellite as expected following deployment.

Image credit: Lunar Trailblazer

Intermittent power issues

However, the team subsequently received engineering data indicating intermittent power system issues. They lost communication with the spacecraft Thursday morning at about 4:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Several hours later, the spacecraft turned on its transmitter.

Now the team is working with NASA ground stations to reestablish telemetry with Lunar Trailblazer.

Work is underway to better assess the power system issues and develop potential solutions.

Leonard David, a dirty reporter in Lockheed Martin clean room gets up-close view of moonbound Lunar Trailblazer.
Image credit: Barbara David

Curio platform

Lunar Trailblazer was developed and built by Lockheed Martin, with the aerospace firm also integrating the craft’s science instruments.

“We’ve been working closely with our partners at NASA JPL and Caltech throughout the mission,” said the company in a statement provided to Inside Outer Space. “Our spacecraft team onsite and our mission operations team in Denver are advising the Caltech-led flight operations team with solutions. We’re dedicated to the health and safety of Lunar Trailblazer and its mission.”

Lunar Trailblazer utilized the aerospace company’s new Curio platform. Curio is a scalable smallsat spacecraft architecture, designed to aid deep-space exploration and to probe scientific questions in a cost-efficient way.

In a NASA-provided statement to Inside Outer Space, the space agency approved life cycle cost for the mission is $94.1 million.

Image credits:
Lunar south pole basemap: LROC
PSR detections from Mazarico, et al. (2011)
Crater: Caltech/PCC/Hongyu Cui for Lunar Trailblazer project

Higher risk posture

Lunar Trailblazer was a selection of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) competition.

“To maintain the lower overall cost, SIMPLEx missions have a higher risk posture and less-stringent requirements for oversight and management,” NASA explains. “This higher risk acceptance bolsters NASA’s portfolio of targeted science missions designed to test pioneering technologies.”

For more information on this eagerly-awaited mission, go to my pre-launch reporting at:

Ready for Liftoff: Lunar Trailblazer to Scout for Water Ice on the Moon

https://www.leonarddavid.com/ready-for-liftoff-lunar-trailblazer-to-scout-for-water-ice-on-the-moon/