Wednesday night's Falcon 9 rideshare mission that launched Intuitive Machines' Athena had a group of other satellites on board, all of which aren't looking as healthy as Athena is. One of those was headed to the moon while a second was headed to an asteroid named 2022 OB5. I'll get to that one in a minute.
The first one is a NASA satellite called Trailblazer. Trailblazer is a 11.5-foot wide (across its solar panels), 440-pound probe designed to orbit low over the lunar surface to hunt for and map where water might be found in permanently shadowed regions on the moon. While the mission from launch through translunar orbit injection went well, things do not appear to be going well for the spacecraft, according to a NASA update. From that NASA post:
Lunar Trailblazer was a selection of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) competition, which provides opportunities for low-cost science spacecraft to ride-share with selected primary missions. To maintain the lower overall cost, SIMPLEx missions have a higher risk posture and less-stringent requirements for oversight and management. This higher risk acceptance bolsters NASA’s portfolio of targeted science missions designed to test pioneering technologies.
The probe powered up and began transmitting data after launch, but its operators began noticing power issues and then lost communication with it some 12 hours after launch. Mission operators at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to reestablish contact with the spacecraft hours later, but are still "working with NASA ground stations to reestablish telemetry and commanding to better assess the power system issues and develop potential solutions," NASA wrote in the update.
Lunar Trailblazer was built by Lockheed Martin and carries two sophisticated instruments to help it hunt for lunar water. One, the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), was designed to map the surface temperature of the moon using infrared light, which could help it map mineral distribution on the lunar surface.
Another instrument aboard the probe, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was designed to measure how much sunlight reflects off the surface of the moon to help it hunt for the chemical "fingerprints" of any water hiding on the lunar surface.
Artist's depiction of Lunar Trailblazer at work around the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin Space/Lunar Trailblazer)
Finally, the third probe mentioned in the opening paragraph is from Astroforge, a private company that hopes to one day mine asteroids for precious resources. Astroforge's Odin probe launched on the mission Wednesday, but on a different trajectory to study asteroid 2022 OB5. The company is already planning a follow-up mission that will land on it.
Astroforge
posted a video to X
that attempts to summarize the situation - time tagged in the early morning
today (4:23 AM - I assume that's in EST). It's a six minute video, and it seems to have low audio since I had
to crank the volume on this computer to its maximum. A short summary is
that they're having issues but don't understand everything, yet. The
mission isn't lost, it's just not going as they'd prefer.
Jinked? Sudden increase too heavy electromagnetic energy?
ReplyDeleteThe short history of Astroforge demonstrates that space is accessible to the common man. Two guys form a company, raise some investor money, find a company to build their vehicle, and launch that vehicle in a matter of months.
ReplyDeleteIt seems their model is to have other companies build, launch, and track their vehicle. That does seem sound given that that knowhow and those facilities exist already.
The comms problems they are now having with Odon are reminiscent of the comm problems with their first vehicle. The thing is they knew of these before launch but felt compelled to go now rather than wait to resolve.
SiG, the video volume was fine on my phone. I had to turn down the volume a bit. The staccato voice of the speaker Matt was at times difficult to understand.
On the last point about the audio, I'm playing it again this morning and while the volume on X is higher than "usual" it's quite a bit better than last night. Either it was something with X or my computer, but it's better this morning.
DeleteLunar Trailblazer cost just under $100 million.
ReplyDeleteSome times its like there are shadows in the amp, gremlins stowed away, a confluence if happenstance us humans fail to foresee, seems to happen in clumps. Often speculate what it is SpaceX does to mitigate gremlins so well considering how many flights and test flights they accomplish. Have they established a unique body of process and procedures which have a rather high success rate? Might it be due to they do mist if their critical manufacturing in house which provides for higher quality output? Finer control of the intangibles and unknown unknowns? Seems so. They have Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy working like a Swiss airline watch. And if your gonna be competitive in space somehow I think you must master these things or your a dead duck, space is so unforgiving, the transition from the bottom of the earth's gravity well to success in vacuum, has so many ways to wreck you, you can not forget anything. Ain't much thats so starkly pass-fail as space operations. But, having grown up from Mercury to present, in my mind I have picture where once enough people/corps etc escape into space establishing a living and working presence, something happens to this presence where getting over the hump of existing successfully is where things begin to be "easier" in the way all the things to overcome just getting out there no longer plague your operations. Hard to put into words. It seems SpaceX is focused straight at that goal in ways no others are or have yet the capabilities. A learning curve? Undoubtably. That SpaceX focus changes the game in every way, like excellence deeply inside and rather hidden, its difficult for those not within that success structure to grok. They surely see it intellectually, but understanding has to begin within your people structure, a holistic process maybe, but certainly to be successful it must be a holistic approach which you deviate from at your peril, like you can not say be a billionaire, decide to build a big pretty rocket, and by doing so success comes to you like building a big retail online business. Sure luck can bless you and you get by the shadows in the amp and the gremlins, but they stow away and get you later on. Maybe its your engineering has to make friends with those critters in some fashion, your tech people develop skills where by they readily catch the little devils, exactly because its when they finally show up when your comfy in vacuum failures are very expensive. Lethal. May be, it requires getting to the point of being more or less self sustaining, maturity lets say, you got operations mining asteroids, or finding them and strapping boosters on them, (or like Pournelle described employing small nukes set off in a deep well or crater, center of mass, and you move your asteroid into a free return orbit towards the earth-moon system, use worn out but serviceable Raptors as small thrusters for tweeking your orbit), the point is its exactly the process where people are living eating producing in space its where humanity finds equilibrium in this environment, and not one second sooner. I don't know. Maybe I am barking up the wring tree or something. Might be read too many sci-fi stories growing up.
ReplyDeleteFirefly touchdown no earlier than 3:34 a.m. EST (0834 UTC). Details links here: https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/03/01/live-coverage-firefly-aerospace-attempts-first-moon-landing-with-blue-ghost/
ReplyDeleteBeen keeping up with their V-clips as they post over at: https://m.youtube.com/@FireflySpace/videos
They look like the best bet for success right now, rooting for them, their visuals are top shelf hi def, timely, seems they have a wonderful enthusiasm. Noticed everyone plugs into various parts of manufacturing and operations, lot of depth of practical knowledge there.