NASA’s Lunar Flashlight team assessing spacecraft’s propulsion system

NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission efficiently launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to start its four-month journey to the moon, the place the small satellite, or SmallSat, will check a number of new applied sciences with a objective of in search of hidden floor ice on the lunar South Pole. The mission is characterizing its new “inexperienced” propulsion system and growing a modified plan for the briefcase-size satellite’s journey to the moon.

Whereas the SmallSat is basically wholesome and speaking with NASA’s Deep House Community, the mission operations group has found that three of its 4 thrusters are underperforming.

The mission group, which first noticed the decreased thrust three days after launch, is working to research the problem and supply potential options. Throughout its cruise, Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system has operated for short-duration pulses of up to a few seconds at a time. Based mostly on floor testing, the group thinks that the underperformance is perhaps attributable to obstructions within the gasoline traces that could be limiting the propellant circulation to the thrusters.

The group plans to quickly function the thrusters for for much longer durations, hoping to filter any potential thruster gasoline line obstructions whereas finishing up trajectory correction maneuvers that can maintain the SmallSat on track to achieve its deliberate orbit across the moon. In case the propulsion system cannot be restored to full efficiency, the mission group is drawing up different plans to perform these maneuvers utilizing the propulsion system with its present reduced-thrust functionality. Lunar Flashlight might want to carry out each day trajectory correction maneuvers beginning in early February to achieve lunar orbit about 4 months from now.

Swooping low over the moon’s floor, the briefcase-size SmallSat will use a brand new laser reflectometer constructed with 4 near-infrared lasers to shine a light-weight into the completely shadowed craters on the lunar South Pole to detect floor ice. To realize this objective with the restricted quantity of propellent it is constructed to hold, Lunar Flashlight will make use of an energy-efficient near-rectilinear halo orbit, taking it inside 9 miles (15 kilometers) of the lunar South Pole and 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) away at its farthest level.

Just one different spacecraft has employed one of these orbit: NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Know-how Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, which launched in June 2022 to a distinct near-rectilinear halo orbit, the identical one that’s deliberate for Gateway. CAPSTONE additionally skilled difficulties throughout its journey to the moon, and among the NASA groups who helped the SmallSat attain its deliberate orbit are lending their experience to assist resolve Lunar Flashlight’s thruster points.

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Lunar Flashlight is the primary interplanetary spacecraft to make use of a brand new form of “inexperienced” propellant, known as Superior Spacecraft Energetic Non-Poisonous (ASCENT), that’s safer to move and retailer than the generally used propellants similar to hydrazine. One of many mission’s main objectives is to show this know-how for future use. The propellant was efficiently examined with a earlier NASA know-how demonstration mission in Earth orbit.

Different techniques on Lunar Flashlight are performing effectively, together with the never-before-flown Sphinx flight laptop, developed by JPL as a low-power, radiation-tolerant choice for SmallSats. Additionally performing as designed, Lunar Flashlight’s upgraded Iris radio—which is used to speak with the Deep House Community—encompasses a new precision navigation functionality that future small spacecraft will use to rendezvous and land on different solar system our bodies. Further new and groundbreaking techniques, such because the mission’s laser reflectometer, might be examined within the coming weeks earlier than the mission enters lunar orbit.