NASA Ends Lunar Flashlight Mission Due to Technical Issues

Officials say the problem is most likely caused by debris building up in the fuel lines, which has prevented the CubeSat from operating at full capacity.

The “suitcase-sized” Lunar Flashlight was first launched in December and was developed by students at Georgia Tech. Once deployed, it was expected to begin a four-month journey to the moon, after which it would search for surface water ice at the dark moon’s south pole. always.

Unfortunately, despite efforts for months to solve the problem, the craft will pass through Earth and then fly into orbit, but hopefully not too close to the sun.

NASA is choosing to take a half-glass approach to failure, noting the success of many components of the project. Barbara Cohen, principal investigator at Goddard Space Flight Center, said that while disappointing, the mission proved the effectiveness of many of the tools first used on Earth. satellite, and that the researchers “collected a lot of in-flight performance data on the device that will be incredibly valuable for future iteration.”