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Published March 5, 2022 | Accepted Version
Book Section - Chapter Open

NASA's Lunar Trailblazer Mission: A Pioneering Small Satellite for Lunar Water and Lunar Geology

Abstract

Selected in 2019 as a NASA SIMPLEx mission, Lunar Trailblazer is in implementation for flight system delivery at the end of 2022. The mission's goal is to understand the form, abundance, and distribution of water on the Moon and the lunar water cycle. Lunar Trailblazer also collects data of candidate landing sites to inform planning for future human and robotic exploration of the Moon and evaluate the potential for in situ resource utilization. Lunar Trailblazer's two science instruments, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) provide simultaneous high-resolution spectral imaging data to map OH/water, crustal composition, and thermophysical properties from a 100±30 km lunar polar orbit. The ∼210-kg flight system deploys from an ESPA Grande and utilizes a ∼1000 m/s ΔV hydrazine chemical propulsion system, similar to that employed by GRAIL. Trailblazing elements include the novel state-of-the-art dataset collected at substantially reduced price point, fully geographically co-registered data products delivered to the Planetary Data System, planetary mission team demographics, Caltech campus mission operations, and student staffing of select mission ops roles. Lunar Trailblazer's pioneering development is providing key lessons learned for future planetary small spacecraft.

Additional Information

© 2022 IEEE. We are grateful to the NASA HQ and PMPO offices and the entire team and staff contributing to the success of Lunar Trailblazer at Caltech, JPL, Lockheed, the University of Oxford, UKSA, and other partners. Lunar Trailblazer is funded at Caltech campus under NASA contract 80MSFC19C0042. A portion of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0019F0079). For more information, see trailblazer.caltech.edu and follow the mission at @lunartrailblazr.

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Accepted Version - Ehlmann_etal_2021_LunarTrailblazer_IEEEAero_v11_final.pdf

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Ehlmann_etal_2021_LunarTrailblazer_IEEEAero_v11_final.pdf
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Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023