Lunar Trailblazer, Odin asteroid prospector fail to respond
Engineers are continuing to attempt to make contact with NASA’s stricken Lunar Trailblazer probe as hopes for the science planned for the mission begin to fade.
The Lunar Trailblazer, one of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx), is designed to map the distribution of the different forms of water on the Moon’s surface. It launched with the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lunar lander on February 27 at 0016 UTC, but after a few hours of contact with controllers, the spacecraft went silent. Also onboard the Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center that day was the Odin space mining probe, itself on a journey to asteroid 2022 OB5, which it is supposed to reach close to the end of December.
The telemetry that controllers did manage to get back from the now silent Lunar Trailblazer indicated power supply issues.
The team has continued attempting to contact the spacecraft in the days since; the leading theory for the silence is that the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state. Controllers hope that the spin will eventually result in more sunlight reaching Lunar Trailblazer’s solar panels, supporting higher-power operations and communication.
Getting some – or any – of the science objectives done is now the controllers’ main challenge. The issues have meant that post-launch Trajectory Corrections Maneuvers (TCMs) have not been performed. These are required to tweak the spacecraft’s trajectory and slip it into its planned orbit around the Moon.
Even if communication was restored at this point, getting into that planned orbit is highly unlikely. Therefore, the team is developing alternative TCM strategies that might put the spacecraft into an orbit where it can achieve some of the science objectives. That’s assuming they can get comms up and running again with the Trailblazer.
As for AstroForge’s Odin asteroid-mining scout, unfortunately, like the Lunar Trailblazer, Odin has also fallen out of contact with controllers. The most likely scenario is that the probe is in a slow tumble, like the Lunar Trailblazer, which would mean the power supply is intermittent.
Controllers for both missions haven’t given up hope of recovery of their spacecraft, but the odds are stacking up a little.
SIMPLEx missions are inherently riskier than many of NASA’s other missions and tend to be ride-shares with selected planetary missions. There is also less oversight, all of which results in lower costs. Odin is a delightfully “out there” expedition aimed at kicking off asteroid mining.
AstroForge intends to continue trying to communicate with Odin but can only do so when it has a large transmitter available. It said: “The dish in India can talk to Odin until it goes down for Maintenance at the end of March.
“While we can’t guarantee success, one thing is certain: we will keep learning, iterating, and taking shots on goal – because space is unforgiving, and you only get better by doing.” ®
