NASA has extended recovery efforts for its stricken Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft to mid-July, but is warning that if the probe remains silent, the mission could end.
Contact with the small satellite was lost the day after its launch on February 26. Controllers were initially able to receive engineering data from the vehicle, but the telemetry indicated power system issues, and the spacecraft eventually fell silent.
The theory is that the spacecraft entered a low-power state, with its solar panels incorrectly oriented, thus generating insufficient power to charge its batteries.
Since then, the Lunar Trailblazer team has attempted to contact the probe. If control can be regained, the instruments are still functional, and the propulsion system is not frozen, there’s a chance that the spacecraft can be inserted into an elliptical orbit and complete its lunar science objectives – if not the mission as initially envisaged.
Ground-based optical and radio telescopes have been used to track the satellite’s position and rate of spin, and radio antennas belonging to various organizations worldwide have provided time to listen for a signal from the Lunar Trailblazer.
However, the further away it travels, the weaker its communication with Earth becomes, should it be re-established, to the point where controllers would be unable to command the probe or receive telemetry.
A few extra weeks were added to recovery efforts after updated models suggested that light conditions might be right for the probe to generate enough power for its batteries to reach an operational state and its radio to switch on. However, once those weeks are exhausted, NASA will have to consider its options, including ending the mission.
The Lunar Trailblazer is a 200 kg (440 lb) spacecraft designed to generate high-resolution maps of the Moon’s surface to determine the location of water, its abundance, form, and how it changes over time. It was supposed to orbit the Moon approximately 100 km (60 miles) from the surface.
The mission came out of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) competition, which was all about low-cost, high-risk missions that could ride share with primary payloads. SIMPLEx missions also have less stringent requirements for oversight and management. ®