Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: pitcapuozzo Nov 19 2014, 04:45 PM

In 2017, NASA's Lunar Flashlight probe will piggyback a ride on the Space Launch System's first flight. The probe, a CubeSat with an 80 sqm solar sail made out of Kapton, will orbit 20 km above the Moon. Its goal will be to map the moon's polar regions, searching from water ice deposits over the course of 80+ orbits. The probe will reflect light off its solar sail and onto the surface of the moon and then it will analyze it using reflectance spectroscopy.

Lunar Flashlight will be followed by the Resource Prospector Mission (RPM), a rover which will liftoff aboard a private rocket in 2018. The rover will land in one of the sites studied by Lunar Flashlight. RPM will last around a week and will look for hydrogen using a spectrometer capable of penetrating 1 m into the ground.

(excuse me for my bad English)

Posted by: Phil Stooke Nov 19 2014, 05:20 PM

Right... Lunar Flashlight is approved for development and will fly.

The Resource Prospector mission is - as far as I know at the moment - not yet approved and is so far only being studied. It is from the Human Exploration side of NASA, not the Science Mission Directorate. It may use a Canadian rover. The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) did an assessment of it a while ago and concluded it needed a lot more work before it was ready to fly. 2018 is probably too soon for it to launch, but we will see.

Phil

Posted by: pitcapuozzo Nov 19 2014, 05:34 PM

Thanks for the info!! I really hope it will get funding.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Dec 15 2022, 02:32 AM

I just noticed that we have this ancient thread about Lunar Flashlight. Well, it was launched on 11 December 2022 and is already past the lunar orbit on a low energy transfer trajectory. All seems to be doing well. It will arrive in a few months in lunar orbit - a Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) which drops to about 15 km above the south pole and about (forgot to look it up, say about 45000 km) above the north pole. This is like CAPSTONE and the future Gateway, except they will be low over the north pole and high over the south pole.

https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=2022-168B

Phil

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Dec 28 2022, 07:20 AM

Here is a view of the Lunar Flashlight spacecraft.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jan 16 2023, 11:56 PM

Oh-oh. Flashlight is having some thruster issues.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-studying-thruster-problem-with-lunar-cubesat/

Several Artemis cubesats had problems too, though not much commonality as I understand it. Cubesat technology still has to mature a bit.

Phil

Posted by: Holder of the Two Leashes May 15 2023, 03:01 PM

Attempts to put Lunar Flashlight into orbit around the moon have been abandoned.

LINK: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-calls-end-to-lunar-flashlight-after-some-tech-successes