WASHINGTON — Engineers are troubleshooting thruster issues on a cubesat launched final month to seek for water ice on the moon, the most recent in a collection of technical points amongst small satellites lately launched to the moon and past.
In a Jan. 12 replace, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mentioned that three of 4 thrusters on the Lunar Flashlight cubesat had been underperforming, or producing much less thrust than anticipated. One clarification, JPL mentioned, was that there are obstructions in strains feeding propellant to the thrusters, lowering the quantity of propellant reaching the thrusters and thus the thrust they produce.
Spacecraft controllers are planning to function the thrusters for longer durations, hoping that can assist clear any obstructions. If the thrusters’ efficiency can’t be restored, challenge managers are contemplating various approaches that might permit the spacecraft to succeed in the moon and perform its mission. The spacecraft might want to begin day by day maneuvers in February to have the ability to enter orbit across the moon in about 4 months.
Lunar Flashlight is designed to enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit, much like that utilized by the CAPSTONE cubesat that arrived on the moon in November and the long run lunar Gateway. The orbit will take the cubesat as shut as 15 kilometers above the floor on the south pole, the place it to make use of lasers to search for water ice that will exist on the floor.
The cubesat’s propulsion system makes use of a “inexperienced” propellant known as Superior Spacecraft Energetic Non-Poisonous (ASCENT), previously often called AF-M315E. The propellant was efficiently demonstrated on NASA’s Inexperienced Propellant Infusion Mission launched in 2019, however Lunar Flashlight is the primary time ASCENT has been used on a mission past Earth orbit.
A change in propulsion techniques for Lunar Flashlight throughout its improvement to at least one offered by the Georgia Institute of Know-how caused the cubesat to miss its original launch opportunity as a secondary payload on the inaugural Space Launch System mission, Artemis 1. The cubesats needed to be delivered to NASA to be put in on the rocket by the autumn of 2021, and Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system was not prepared in time. NASA as an alternative procured a rideshare launch alternative, ultimately launching the spacecraft on a Falcon 9 Dec. 11 together with the Hakuto-R lunar lander from Japanese firm ispace.
Artemis 1 launched Nov. 16 with 10 cubesat secondary payloads. Greater than half of them have skilled important issues throughout launch. One instance is LunaH-Map, a NASA-funded cubesat additionally designed to enter orbit to search for water ice. It has suffered an issue with a caught valve in its electrical thruster that’s jeopardizing its means to enter lunar orbit.
The mission’s principal investigator, Craig Hardgrove, mentioned in mid-December that engineers thought that heating the valve would allow it to open and restore the thruster to normal operations. The mission has till mid-January to repair the thruster to allow the spacecraft to enter orbit across the moon, after which he mentioned will as an alternative have a look at alternatives to carry out an asteroid flyby.
A number of different cubesats have both reported issues or have failed to speak in any respect with Earth. There isn’t any apparent technical challenge linking the issues with the cubesats.
