Low on power and spinning out of control, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer moon probe’s future looks grim

NASA’s new water-scouting moon orbiter has been in trouble ever since its Feb. 26 launch atop a SpaceX rocket, but things are looking more dire as the spacecraft runs low on power while spinning in space.

Ground controllers for the NASA/Caltech-led mission, called Lunar Trailblazer, have valiantly tried to reestablish communications with the small satellite over the last week, but the probe is still out of contact.

“Based on telemetry before the loss of signal last week and ground-based radar data collected March 2, the team believes the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state,” NASA’s Naomi Hartono wrote in a statement on March 4.

The team will continue to monitor for signals “should the spacecraft orientation change to where the solar panels receive more sunlight, increasing their output to support higher-power operations and communication,” Hartono added.

Lunar Trailblazer flight controllers are using NASA’s Deep Space Network, along with ground-based observatories, to better understand the spacecraft’s orientation in space. But the spacecraft’s woes have kept it from performing vital post-launch trajectory correction maneuvers, or TCMs – small thruster operations to adjust the small spacecraft’s flight path toward the moon. Ideally, future TCMs would put the probe into its planned science orbit around the moon, if NASA can get it back under control..

“The team is now working to define alternative TCM strategies that could be used after reacquiring communications and establishing normal spacecraft functionality,” Hartono wrote in the NASA update. “These alternative TCM strategies may be able to place Lunar Trailblazer in lunar orbit and allow it to complete some of its science objectives.”

A small moon satellite with its solar panel unfurled during ground testing

NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft during assembly and testing before its launch to the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin Space)

Lunar Trailblazer is designed to orbit the moon to detect signatures of water ice in reflected light, pinpointing the locales of ice or water trapped in rock on the moon’s surface.

Mission operators at Caltech’s Lunar Trailblazer control center in Pasadena, California, were able to establish communications with the small satellite as expected following its deployment after launch on Feb. 26. But soonafter, the team received engineering data indicating intermittent power system issues. They lost communication with the spacecraft Thursday morning, Feb. 27, at about 4:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Several hours later, the spacecraft turned on its transmitter, but has since fallen out of contact.

Lunar Trailblazer was developed and built by Lockheed Martin, with the aerospace firm also integrating the craft’s science instruments. The spacecraft weighs a modest 440 pounds (200 kilograms) and measures 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide when its solar panels are fully deployed. The mission is based out of Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

“We’ve been working closely with our partners at NASA JPL and Caltech throughout the mission,” Lockheed Martin representatives said in a statement 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 used Lockheed Martin’s new Curio platform. Curio is a scalable smallsat spacecraft architecture designed to aid deep-space exploration and probe scientific questions in a cost-efficient way.

The mission has a total lifetime cost of about $94.1 million, according to a NASA statement provided to Inside Outer Space. It was originally selected as part 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,” Hartono wrote in the NASA update. “This higher risk acceptance bolsters NASA’s portfolio of targeted science missions designed to test pioneering technologies.”

Lunar Trailblazer is one of several moon missions launched in recent weeks to explore the lunar surface. On Sunday (March 2), the private Blue Ghost lander built by Firefly Aerospace touched down on the moon’s Mare Crisium region to begin a two-week mission on the lunar surface.

Lunar Trailblazer launched alongside another private moon lander, Intuitive Machines’ Athena probe, which is scheduled to land at the lunar south pole on March 6 to deliver a NASA ice-hunting drill, small rover, hopping robot and more to the moon. You can watch that Athena moon landing live on Space.com.