The Lunar Trailblazer mission of NASA ends with disappointment

The Lunar Trailblazer mission on the Moon officially ended on July 31, but it was not a complete trip. Nasa Today, its teams have lost contact with the satellite shortly after its launch several months earlier.

The NASA satellite was part of the IM-2 mission by intuitive machines, which took off from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket of Kennedy Space Center on February 26 at 7:16 p.m.. The Lunar Trailblazer successfully separated from the rocket as expected about 48 minutes after the launch. Pasadena operators in California established communication with the satellite at 8:13 p.m., but the bidirectional communication was lost the next day and the team could not recover the connection. According to the limited data teams received before the satellite becomes dark, the solar crafts networks were not properly positioned towards the sun, which caused its batteries to flow.

“Although this is not the result we hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk of future small satellites at low cost to make innovative sciences while we are preparing for a sustained human presence on the Moon,” said Nicky Fox, administrator associated with the management of the NASA science mission. “Thank you to the Lunar Trailblazer team for their dedication in the work and learning this mission until the end.”

The Trailblazer lunar mission was one of the Scheduled to travel on the moon in 2025. Its objective was to create high resolution maps of all water on the surface of the moon, as well as to assess the quantity of water present, in what forms and how it could have changed over time. The cross fingers, the remaining missions are a better success.