Latest news with #SIMPLEx
Time of India
2 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
NASA's $94 million Lunar Trailblazer mission ends in silence after launch failure
NASA has sent numerous satellites as a part of the ongoing missions to explore the unknown phenomenon in space, and recently, they made the difficult decision to officially terminate its Lunar Trailblazer mission after months of attempts to recover the small orbiter. The mission was designed to find out some valuable facts by mapping and characterizing water reserves on the Moon's surface. However, early on in its journey, the spacecraft lost communication and was presumed to be tumbling without sufficient power to operate. NASA recently announced the mission's end, which came as a disappointing outcome for a project that was supposed to support future lunar missions. What is the Lunar Trailblazer Mission Lunar Trailblazer is a 200‑kg orbiter under NASA's low‑cost SIMPLEx program, which was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 26, 2025, as a rideshare on the IM‑2 mission to the Moon. About 48 minutes into the flight, it separated successfully, and initial contact was made later that evening from Caltech's IPAC in Pasadena. However, by early morning the next day, communication was lost due to intermittent power problems, and engineers soon found out that the spacecraft was spinning and unable to keep its solar panels pointed toward the Sun, according to information by NASA. NASA tried to recover the lost contact NASA worked tirelessly through spring and summer, attempting to reestablish contact in mid‑June and early July. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Susan Boyle Is Now so Thin and Looks Beautiful! Undo Teams from NASA's Deep Space Network and various international observatories monitored the orbiter's trajectory, orientation, and potential sunlight exposure. Scientists hoped that if enough sunlight hit the spacecraft's solar panels, the batteries might get enough charge for the Lunar Trailblazer to wake up and send a signal again. NASA even had backup plans ready in case they managed to reconnect and keep the mission going. Despite these consistent efforts, Lunar Trailblazer drifted beyond the Moon and into deep space, spinning ever more slowly and becoming too distant to command or receive telemetry. Teams at JPL and Caltech finally acknowledged the mission could no longer yield scientific results, leading NASA to officially end it on July 31, 2025. This unsuccessful mission is a lesson for future missions According to reports by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 'At NASA, we undertake high‑risk, high‑reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to find revolutionary ways of doing new science,' said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. 'While it was not the outcome we had hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk for future, low‑cost small satellites to do innovative science as we prepare for a sustained human presence on the Moon. ' The trailblazer had a companion Lunar Trailblazer shared its ride with the Athena lander, part of Intuitive Machines' IM‑2 mission. Athena successfully touched down near the lunar south pole on March 6, 2025, but shortly thereafter toppled over. In a compromised orientation, its solar panels could not recharge the batteries, ending its surface mission prematurely, delivering only limited data before it went silent the next day.
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.
