NASA’s Lunar Flashlight to fly by Earth

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission to the moon has ended, however the briefcase-size spacecraft will quickly fly previous Earth earlier than heading into deep space. On Tuesday, Might 16, at 9:44 p.m. PDT (Wednesday, Might 17, at 12:44 a.m. EDT), the CubeSat will move about 40,000 miles (65,000 kilometers) from our planet’s floor.

NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D visualization device will observe the tiny spacecraft in actual time, giving customers a front-row seat to the flyby. (The device additionally offers loads of details about the spacecraft, together with its orbit and forthcoming deep space voyage, as effectively.) As well as, the CubeSat could also be inside attain of novice astronomers’ telescopes within the Southern Hemisphere.

“As Lunar Flashlight zooms by, it could mirror sufficient daylight from its solar panels that it may very well be seen via a modest telescope,” mentioned Barbara Cohen, Lunar Flashlight principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Heart in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Relying on its orientation and place it may very well be as much as a magnitude 5 or 6 shifting dot.”

Whereas nonetheless tens of hundreds of miles away, the daylight bouncing off the CubeSat’s solar panels could also be seen for these with clear, darkish skies. The brightness of an astronomical object will be measured as obvious magnitude. As an object of magnitude 5 or 6, the CubeSat could also be seen to yard telescopes when it passes at its closest level over the east coast of Brazil. Observers ought to use NASA Horizons to examine the place within the sky Lunar Flashlight might be.

After launch on Dec. 11, Lunar Flashlight was despatched on a protracted, looping path, far past Earth orbit. Now it has returned to the proximity of our planet, after being pulled again by the mixed gravity of Earth and the moon.

The spacecraft was designed to check new applied sciences and tackle information gaps by exploring completely shadowed craters on the moon’s South Pole. However quickly after Lunar Flashlight launched, its operations crew found that the CubeSat’s 4 thrusters had been underperforming. After months of troubleshooting to treatment the scenario, time ran out for the spacecraft to make crucial maneuvers that may have put it in orbit round Earth with month-to-month flybys of the moon’s South Pole.

When it turned clear that Lunar Flashlight could not get into the required orbit for lunar observations, NASA referred to as an finish to the remainder of its mission. The spacecraft’s different methods are functioning effectively and it stays involved with mission operators. NASA is now weighing choices for Lunar Flashlight’s future.

After passing Earth, the CubeSat will proceed into an orbit across the sun. Lunar Flashlight’s orbit will convey it near Earth as soon as extra in November 2037.