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 take a look at 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 essentially 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 lowered thrust three days after launch, is working to research the problem and supply doable options. Throughout its cruise, Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system has operated for short-duration pulses of up to some seconds at a time. Based mostly on floor testing, the group thinks that the underperformance could be attributable to obstructions within the gas strains that could be limiting the propellant stream to the thrusters.

The group plans to quickly function the thrusters for for much longer durations, hoping to filter out any potential thruster gas line obstructions whereas finishing up trajectory correction maneuvers that can maintain the SmallSat heading in the right direction 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 every 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 lightweight 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 the sort of orbit: NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Know-how Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, which launched in June 2022 to a special near-rectilinear halo orbit, the identical one that’s deliberate for Gateway. CAPSTONE additionally skilled difficulties throughout its journey to the moon, and a number of 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 type 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 major objectives is to reveal this expertise for future use. The propellant was efficiently examined with a earlier NASA expertise demonstration mission in Earth orbit.

Different methods on Lunar Flashlight are performing nicely, together with the never-before-flown Sphinx flight laptop, developed by JPL as a low-power, radiation-tolerant possibility for SmallSats. Additionally performing as designed, Lunar Flashlight’s upgraded Iris radio—which is used to speak with the Deep House Community—incorporates 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 methods, such because the mission’s laser reflectometer, shall be examined within the coming weeks earlier than the mission enters lunar orbit.