NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer Mission is in danger. He launched on February 27 to send a probe to the Moon in search of water. But less than a week after the launch, NASA has lost track of the spaceship, which can compromise the mission if NASA cannot restore contact.
The Trailblazer lunar mission is part of NASA Simplex programwhich finances low -cost and high reward missions using a smaller spaceship. These low -cost probes are often included in the launch of larger missions, a bit like a carpool – it launched with a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Florida.
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Space communications are A little more complex That they are here on earth, but the general principles are the same. In short, an object transmitter in space sends data captured by a receiver on earth and vice versa. However, carrying out these actions requires power, and things can become risky when the power goes out. That’s about what happened with the Lunar Trailblazer.
NASA reports that The telemetry of the lunar pioneer showed that it had started a slow rotation. This rotation, believes NASA, led the solar panels to move away from the sun, which brings the satellite to a state of low power.
“The Lunar Trailblazer team worked 24 hours a day to restore communications with the spaceship,” said Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of the NASA scientific mission management. “NASA sends high -risk missions and a strong reward like Lunar Trailblazer to make incredible sciences at a lower cost, and the team really sums up the innovative NASA spirit – if someone can bring Lunar Trailblazer, it’s them.”
For the moment, NASA says that the best chance it has to recover the lunar pioneer is to continue to turn until it reorients itself so that solar panels get more juice from the sun. He also works with the NASA deep space network and the ground observatories to collect data on the lost satellite.
THE Mission of Lunar Trailblazer is to spend six months floating on the moon, where it will take high resolution photos of the entire surface. The purpose of this excursion is to find water
The mission can still be recovered
If NASA restores the connection, the mission can still be recorded. The connection was lost before the lunar traiblazer could carry out the different small propellant operations necessary to reach its appropriate orbit to take off from the earth and fly to the moon. However, the more inaccessible the satellite remains, the more difficult it will be to reach the goal.
“The team now strives to define alternative TCM (trajectory correction maneuvers) strategies that could be used after updating communications and normal space vessel features,” NASA said in a blog article. “These alternative TCM strategies can be able to place a lunar pioneer in lunar orbit and allow it to fulfill some of its scientific objectives.”
THE Mission of Lunar Trailblazer is supposed to be a low -cost company with high reward to photograph all water on the surface of the moon to better determine how much there is and what forms it takes. If NASA reconnects and the new TCM strategies are successful, the satellite will always take about six months to reach our nearest celestial neighbor to start taking measures.
The worst type of connection problems
Connection problems with space objects are nothing new for NASA or any other space agency. At the end of last year, NASA had to activate a radio that traveling 1 had not used for 40 years to restore contact with the old satellite. During a livestream hosted by NASA on Twitch, the connection to the international space station was lost while the astronaut Don Pettit was in the middle of the sentence.
Sometimes connection losses are expected. For example, the Blue Ghost Mission stuck its landing on the moon earlier this week, and this mission will end once the equipment will lose its solar energy and the connection is lost. In short, connection problems are a boring problem but not uncommon with space objects.
