Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Artistic view of Lunar Trailblazer.
Credit: Lockheed Martin

A spacecraft that is hot on the trail of scouting out super-cold water ice on the Moon is the Caltech-led Lunar Trailblazer orbiter.

This NASA-backed mission is to be co-launched with the Intuitive Machines (IM-2), a Nova-C lunar lander now dubbed Athena under the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The unique Lunar Trailblazer orbiter is a secondary spacecraft to be hurled into space with the IM-2, launched together on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Inside Outer Space sources indicate the window of opportunity for takeoff appears to be January 1-5, 2025.

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

Co-collected datasets

Lunar Trailblazer is a NASA Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program spacecraft, built to gather science data as it circuits the Moon. Here on Earth, it will be operated by both Caltech and Pasadena City College students at the Caltech-based Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC).

Lunar Trailblazer is to utilize “co-collected datasets” gleaned from two instruments: the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM).

Great gobs of water ice?

Hypothesized to be resident at the poles of the Moon are great gobs of water ice, sitting within regions that are permanently in shadow. They could also potentially host organic content.

Gauging the amount of water ice present — its form, purity, and geologic and topographic context — are viewed as critical to not only figuring out the role of these reservoirs in the lunar water cycle but could they be tapped as a resource to sustain future human expeditions.

Infographic of Lunar Trailblazer’s data acquisition strategy. Image credit: Filo Merid (PCC/Caltech)

Curio

Under contract with Caltech, Lockheed Martin has provided the spacecraft and is integrating the flight system.

Lockheed Martin has developed a scalable deep space SmallSat spacecraft and tagged the architecture with the name Curio.

“The Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft team has completed the assembly of the vehicle and integration of its instruments, and has also taken the fully assembled spacecraft through its environmental testing,” said Ryan Pfeiffer, Lunar Trailblazer program manager at Lockheed Martin.

Lunar Trailblazer undergoes final checkout and testing.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin

“We’re very excited to demonstrate our Curio small-sat, a low-cost and rapidly flexible spacecraft, in this first-of-its-kind mission to seek out water on the lunar surface and advance humanity’s exploration and understanding of the universe around us,” Pfeiffer told Inside Outer Space.

Ship to Florida

The team is now performing tests that will simulate key aspects of the Lunar Trailblazer mission, such as launch and the primary science mission to ensure the spacecraft will perform as designed once it arrives in lunar orbit, said Pfeiffer.

“We’re planning to ship the spacecraft to Florida about a month prior to launch,” Pfeiffer added, “where we will perform final checkouts and then assist our partners with integration onto the launch vehicle.”