NASA just lost yet another one of its low-cost planetary missions
Since the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft launched in late February as a rideshare spacecraft along with a Falcon 9 launch, NASA has been providing a series of increasingly worrisome updates about the health of the small orbiter. Trailblazer appears to be spinning and out of contact with engineers back on Earth.
In an update published on Tuesday evening, the space agency acknowledged that a mission operations team at the California Institute of Technology is continuing its efforts to reestablish contact with the 200-kg spacecraft intended to orbit the Moon.
“Based on telemetry before the loss of signal last week and ground-based radar data collected March 2, the team believes the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state,” the space agency said. “They will continue to monitor for signals should the spacecraft orientation change to where the solar panels receive more sunlight, increasing their output to support higher-power operations and communication.”
