Latest news with #LunarTrailblazer
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Here's Every Major US Space Launch Scheduled in 2025: Plan Your Viewing
Space agencies from around the world launched a total of 244 successful missions into orbit or space in 2024, which is the most in history. The US led the way with over half of those launches. Dozens of space launches are already planned for 2025. Feel like watching a liftoff? Many of them will likely be streamed by NASA or from the YouTube channels of individual companies like SpaceX. Space launches are finicky, and the dates often change with little warning. But if you're looking to keep an eye on the sky in 2025, the list below should help. Launch date: Launched successfully on Jan. 15Organization: SpaceX / NASA / Firefly AerospaceLaunch site: Kennedy Space Center, FLRocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 This uncrewed mission, which launched on Jan. 15, will carry Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander to the moon, along with a payload of 10 NASA instruments designed to measure various metrics on the lunar surface, including position and navigation data, regolith behavior and Earth's magnetosphere. Launch date: Launched successfully on Jan. 16Organization: Blue Origin / NASARocket: Blue Origin New GlennLaunch site: Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL Blue Origin's first test flight of its New Glenn rocket was originally scheduled for Jan. 13. However, a vehicle subsystem issue sprung up that would've taken too long to troubleshoot on the launch pad, so Blue Origin rescheduled the launch, and it successfully reached orbit on Jan. 16. In addition to the inaugural launch, the payload included Blue Ring Pathfinder, which was set to demonstrate its ability to communicate from orbit to ground. Read more: New Glenn Rocket Launch Marks a Big Moment for Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Launch date: Successfully launched on Feb. 27Organization: SpaceX / NASA / Intuitive MachinesRocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, FL The Lunar Trailblazer and Nova-C IM-2 mission lifted off successfully on Feb. 27. While the Nova-C IM-2 part of the mission is still going okay, the Lunar Trailblazer lost communications with NASA and is currently lost in space. The mission's success will depend entirely on if NASA can reestablish contact, which the agency is still trying to do. This mission will take the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander to the moon for its second mission. The trip also includes NASA's PRIME-1 payload, which will be drilling into the moon and using a mass spectrometer to analyze materials beneath the surface. Launch date: Launched successfully on March 11Organization: SpaceX / NASARocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA SpaceX and NASA originally planned to launch the SPHEREx and PUNCH missions in the last week of February 2025, but were delayed until the second week of March. SpaceX sent its Falcon 9 rocket into orbit with NASA's SPHEREx and PUNCH. SPHEREx is a two-year mission that will launch a satellite capable of detecting near-infrared light and optical light to gather data. PUNCH is four suitcase-sized satellites that will monitor the Sun's corona to detect coronal mass ejections to eventually be able to predict when they'll happen. Launch date: March 14Organization: SpaceX / NASA / ROSCOSMOS / JAXARocket: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL A crewed flight to the International Space Station successfully launched on March 14, bearing American astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Russian astronaut Kirill Peskov and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. Once they arrive at the ISS, Crew-9, along with Starliner astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, will make its way back to Earth. Williams and Wilmore made near-constant headlines since their June trip to the ISS stretched from the expected eight days to more than eight months, but with Crew-10 on its way, they should be home soon. Read more: NASA Crew-10 Astronauts Launch to ISS on SpaceX Rocket Launch date: TBAOrganization: United Launch Alliance / Kuiper Systems (Amazon)Rocket: Vulcan VC6L and Atlas V 551Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The first two Project Kuiper launches are scheduled for March 2025. Kuiper Systems is a subsidiary of Amazon and plans to launch a total of 3,276 satellites into orbit for broadband internet access to compete with the likes of SpaceX. There will be a number of these going up throughout 2025 and beyond, but this project is slated to start in March 2025. Launch date: TBA Organization: Blue OriginRocket: Blue Origin New GlennLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL Blue Origin will finally begin testing on its Blue Moon Pathfinder MK1 lunar lander. It isn't going to the moon yet, but Blue Origin launches always get plenty of press before they go up. Eventually, Blue Origin wants to use the Pathfinder to take supplies to the moon. Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceXRocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The Fram2 mission is a crewed mission that will take five passengers around Earth's polar caps. Over the five-day mission, the crew will conduct the first-ever human x-ray while in space along with more research on how spaceflight affects the human body. They will also study STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, which is a ribbon of hot gases that light up the night sky similar to aurora borealis. The crew will consist of Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Eric Philips and Rabea Rogge. Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / Axiom SpaceRocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The Axiom Space Mission 4 will send four people to the International Space Station where they'll stay for a little over a week. The crew includes retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, Polish engineer Sławosz Uznański and Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu. Exact date: TBAOrganization: Northrop Grumman Space SystemsRocket: Minotaur IVLaunch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA The EWS OD-1 mission will deploy the Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather System into low Earth orbit as a tech demonstration, allowing various branches of the US military to evaluate its performance as a weather satellite for the Department of Defense. Exact date: TBAOrganization: United Launch AllianceRocket: Vulcan VC4SLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL This is a mission for the United States Space Force. It'll deploy the NTS-3 navigation satellite along with NASA's SunRISE mini-satellites, which will study solar activity. Other payloads are planned for this launch but haven't been announced yet. Exact date: TBAOrganization: Blue Origin / NASARocket: New GlennLaunch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission is a joint venture between Blue Origin and NASA that will send science tools to Mars to study our red neighbor. The instruments will study the solar wind energy transfer through Mars' magnetosphere. It's one of Blue Origin's biggest launches of the year. Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The Crew-11 flight will take four more astronauts to the ISS in July 2025. For now, the exact launch date hasn't been set in stone and neither has the crew. However, it'll be just like the Crew-10 launch, where four astronauts will go to the ISS to conduct study and relieve the prior crew. Exact date: TBAOrganization: Northrop Grumman Space Systems / US Department of DefenseRocket: Minotaur IVLaunch site: Vandenberg SFB, CA STP-S29A is a fairly large mission from the US Department of Defense that'll see Northrop Grumman launch several technology demonstrations into low Earth orbit. Included in the payload are 200 kilograms worth of CubeSats -- very small satellites -- for testing purposes. In addition, the STPSat-7 will also be deployed, which will track and catalog orbital debris. September Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL The IMAP mission is a joint venture between SpaceX and NASA that'll see the deployment of the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, yet another instrument to measure how solar winds affect things in and around Earth. The probe houses 10 instruments that take various measurements. In addition, the mission will house a small lunar orbiter called Lunar Trailblazer, a solar sail called Solar Cruiser and a weather satellite to study ultraviolet emissions in the Earth's exosphere. Exact date: TBAOrganization: SpaceX / NASARocket: Falcon 9 Block 5Launch site: Cape Canaveral, FL The Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor 2 is a probe from NASA that'll measure the Sun's energy input into Earth through solar irradiance measurements. This data will be added to the decades of other Sun-related data that NASA has to better understand just how much energy strikes Earth from the Sun. The TSIS-1 is aboard the ISS and measures similar criteria from there.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's Lunar Trailblazer Is Officially Lost in Space -- but Maybe Not Forever
NASA's Lunar Trailblazer mission is in jeopardy. It launched on Feb. 27 to send a probe to the moon in search of water. But less than a week after launch, NASA lost track of the spacecraft, which may compromise the mission if NASA can't reestablish contact. The Lunar Trailblazer mission is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, which funds low-cost, high-reward missions using smaller spacecraft. These low-cost probes are often included in the launch of larger missions, much like a carpool -- this one launched along with a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Florida. Read more: Intuitive Machines Aims for Moon Landing on Thursday Communications in space are a little more complex than they are here on Earth, but the general principles are the same. In short, a transmitter from the object in space sends data that is captured by a receiver on Earth and vice versa. However, performing these actions requires power, and things can get dicey when the power goes out. That's pretty much what happened with the Lunar Trailblazer. NASA reports that telemetry from the Lunar Trailblazer showed that it had begun a slow spin. This spin, NASA believes, caused the solar panels to orient themselves away from the sun, causing the satellite to revert to a low-power state. "The Lunar Trailblazer team has been working around the clock to re-establish communications with the spacecraft," said Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate. "NASA sends up high-risk, high-reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to do incredible science at a lower cost, and the team truly encapsulates the NASA innovative spirit -- if anyone can bring Lunar Trailblazer back, it is them." For now, NASA says the best chance it has at salvaging the Lunar Trailblazer is for it to continue spinning until it reorients itself so that the solar panels get more juice from the sun. It is also working with NASA's Deep Space Network and ground-based observatories to gather data on the lost satellite. The Lunar Trailblazer's mission is to spend six months floating to the moon, where it'll take high-resolution photos of the entire surface. The purpose of this excursion is to find water Should NASA reestablish the connection, the mission can still be saved. The connection was lost before the Lunar Traiblazer could perform the various small thruster operations necessary to reach its proper orbit to take off from Earth and fly to the moon. However, the longer the satellite remains unreachable, the more difficult it will be to complete the objective. "The team is now working to define alternative TCM (trajectory correction maneuvers) strategies that could be used after reacquiring communications and establishing normal spacecraft functionality," NASA said in a blog post. "These alternative TCM strategies may be able to place Lunar Trailblazer in lunar orbit and allow it to complete some of its science objectives." The Lunar Trailblazer's mission is meant to be a low-cost, high-reward endeavor to photograph any water on the moon's surface to better ascertain how much is there and what forms it takes. Should NASA reconnect with it and the new TCM strategies are successful, the satellite will still take about six months to reach our nearest celestial neighbor to begin taking measurements. Connection issues with objects in space are nothing new for NASA or any other space agency. Late last year, NASA had to activate a radio that Voyager 1 hadn't used in 40 years to reestablish contact with the ancient satellite. During a NASA-hosted livestream on Twitch, connection to the International Space Station was lost while astronaut Don Pettit was in mid-sentence. Sometimes, connection losses are expected. For example, the Blue Ghost mission stuck its moon landing earlier this week, and that mission will end once the equipment loses its solar power and the connection is lost. In short, connection issues are an annoying but not infrequent issue with space objects.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Struggle to Communicate With 2 Spacecraft Launched Wednesday
Scientists are struggling to maintain contact with not one, but two spacecraft launched alongside a new commercial lunar lander on Wednesday. NASA's Lunar Trailblazer, which aims to map the Moon's water cycle, and AstroForge's Odin, which will analyze an asteroid's potential metal content, have both failed to transmit consistent data to their teams on the ground, leading to concerns about their respective missions. Since day one, Lunar Trailblazer has had quite the journey ahead of it: The satellite's meandering yet fuel-efficient path toward lunar orbit is set to take four months. A few hours after the spacecraft's launch last week, NASA reported that Lunar Trailblazer had powered up as planned and successfully sent a radio signal to the agency's Deep Space Network Canberra complex in Australia. A day later, however, NASA shared that mission operators had lost communication with the spacecraft in the wee hours of morning. Lunar Trailblazer had reportedly transmitted telemetry data indicating intermittent power system issues shortly before the communication disruption. Hours later, the spacecraft turned on its transmitter, allowing operators to begin reestablishing contact. They're now working to assess the satellite's self-reported power issues, according to NASA's latest statement. Odin has traveled an even rockier road, and not because it's looking for asteroids. A day after launch, AstroForge, the "asteroid mining" firm behind the spacecraft, shared via X that it had experienced "countless ground station issues" but had communicated with Odin on several occasions. Early the following morning—roughly 36 hours after launch—the team noted in a video update that they had received carrier signals from Odin, but no telemetry. Still, they assumed the spacecraft was in a power-positive state and remained hopeful that the communication issues were on the ground, not with Odin itself. Finally, in a written update published Saturday, AstroForge shared that a polarization issue with Odin's antenna prevented both uplink and downlink for the first four hours of the mission—a critical loss for any spacecraft, due to the system checks and critical maneuvers required during that window. It took the amateur satellite network AmSat accidentally stumbling upon Odin's signal to reestablish communication between AstroForge and its spacecraft. Still, the back-and-forth has been shaky, and AstroForge has been spending the last few days scrambling to reduce interference as Odin continues what is thought to be a "really slow, uncontrolled tumble" through space. Both spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center via SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on Feb. 26. They hitched a ride with Athena, a lunar lander from the Texas-based aerospace firm Intuitive Machines. As far as we know, Athena is the only spacecraft of the trio not to have experienced communication issues so far; in fact, it's beamed down some gorgeous snapshots of Earth ahead of its landing attempt on March 6.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's brand-new Lunar Trailblazer probe suffers glitch on way to the moon
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA's Lunar Trailblazer probe could be in trouble. Lunar Trailblazer launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Feb. 26 alongside Intuitive Machine's Athena moon lander on the IM-2 mission. The 11.5-foot (3.5-meter), 440-pound (200-kilogram) probe was designed to orbit low over the lunar surface to hunt for and map where water might be found in permanently shadowed regions on the moon. While its launch went smoothly, things do not appear to be going well for the spacecraft, according to a NASA update. Lunar Trailblazer powered up and began transmitting data after launch, but its operators began noticing power issues and subsequently lost communication with the probe some 12 hours after launch. Mission operators at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to reestablish contact with the spacecraft hours later, but are still "working with NASA ground stations to reestablish telemetry and commanding to better assess the power system issues and develop potential solutions," NASA wrote in the update. Lunar Trailblazer was built by Lockheed Martin and carries two sophisticated instruments to help it hunt for lunar water. One, the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), was designed to map the surface temperature of the moon using infrared light, which could help it map mineral distribution on the lunar surface. Another instrument aboard the probe, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was designed to measure how much sunlight reflects off the surface of the moon to help it hunt for the chemical "fingerprints" of any water hiding on the lunar surface. Finding water on the moon is a high priority for NASA as the agency works to establish a sustainable human presence there through its Artemis program. Recent moon-mapping missions have found evidence that water exists in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar south pole, the same region where NASA plans to land astronauts with its Artemis 3 mission. RELATED STORIES: — SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video) — 1st map of moon water could help Artemis astronauts live at the lunar south pole — Can NASA's Artemis moon missions count on using lunar water ice? It remains uncertain how much water might be found there, but scientists hope that it could be used to support a human presence on the moon or even be used to produce resources such as rocket fuel. Another probe that launched alongside Lunar Trailblazer appears to be in trouble. Astroforge, a private company that hopes to one day mine asteroids for precious resources, launched its Odin probe on the same rocket in order to study asteroid 2022 OB5 ahead of a follow-up mission that will land there. Odin has yet to phone home, and mission controllers "don't fully understand the state of the vehicle," Astroforge CEO Matthew Gialich posted on X on Friday (Feb. 28).
El Balad
27-02-2025
- Science
- El Balad
رئيس جامعة الوادي الجديد يكرم منتخب كرة القدم للجنة الرياضية للعاملين
If astronauts plan to spend more than a few days on the moon, they'll need to find some local resources. One of the most important of those resources is water. Scientists are pretty sure there is water on the moon, they just don't know exactly where. Two probes are heading to the moon to begin to answer that question. They'll depart on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral. The four-day launch window opens at 7:16 PM ET on Feb. 26. If all goes according to plan, the first of the probes to reach the moon will be a lander called Athena, built by the company Intuitive Machines. The trip to the moon is pretty short. "It takes about three to four days, depending on where we launch in that launch window," says Timothy Crain, chief technology officer and co-founder of Intuitive Machines. "We orbit the moon for two to three days, basically to let the sun move over the landing site," he says. Once that happens, the probe can land, as the lander's solar panels need sun to generate power. "It takes about 15 minutes once we light the engine, to come down and to do a soft touch landing, Crain says. The landing site is on a flat top mountain near the lunar south pole called Mons Mouton, a feature named for the mathematician Melba Mouton. This is Intuitive Machines' second attempt to land on the moon. It tried a year ago, but the probe tipped over after landing. "We definitely contacted the ground harder than we expected," Crain says. "And you know, in the space game, usually, if things don't work out exactly the way you plan, they don't work out at all." Even though it tipped over, it got a good amount of data before it ran out of power, so Crain is pretty pleased with the first try. The new lander carries quite an array of tools. One is a drill and spectrometer made by NASA that will look for water under the lunar surface. There's also a small rover that will be used to test a 4-G local communications network built by Nokia, and a miniature rover small enough to fit in the palm of your hand made by the Japanese firm Dymon Co. Ltd. Then there's the Hopper, named for the mathematician Grace Hopper. The name also refers to what the Hopper does: it's basically a rocket pack that can hop around the landing sight, looking inside of craters that have never been explored. The same rocket launching the Intuitive Machines lander on its mission is also carrying a spacecraft called Lunar Trailblazer. That dishwasher-sized probe is intended to go into orbit around the moon. "The focus of the mission is trying to understand the abundance and the form and distribution of lunar water and the lunar water cycle," says Angela Dapremont from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and a member of the Lunar Trailblazer science team. She says scientists are pretty sure there is water on the moon, they're just not sure what form it's in. "Is it molecular water? Is it water ice? Is it hydroxyl?" Dapremont says. Knowing that makes a big difference when it comes to harvesting the water. Lunar Trailblazer is one NASA's new class of small innovative exploratory spacecraft. One of the intriguing aspects of the mission is that it's being operated by students in what basically is a small conference room. Carson L. (Lee) Bennett is an engineer at Caltech and Lunar Trailblazer's mission manager. He says most deep space probes are run out of NASA's nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "But for a lot of these smaller spacecraft is now moving to college campuses," Bennett says. Lunar Trailblazer separates from the Intuitive Machines lander shortly after takeoff. Because it doesn't have a very powerful engine, it will take the smaller probe several months to reach the moon and go into the orbit it needs for its scientific mission. Copyright 2025 NPR
