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Lunar Flashlight Mission Updates and Discussion
by
Jcc
on 14 Oct, 2014 01:40
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Lunar Flashlight is an exciting new mission concept that was recently selected by NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UCLA, and Marshall Space Flight Center. This innovative, low-cost concept will map the lunar south pole for volatiles and demonstrate several technological firsts, including being the first CubeSat to reach the Moon, the first mission to use an 80 m2 solar sail, and the first mission to use a solar sail as a reflector for science observations.
http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/lunar-flashlight/
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#1
by
turbopumpfeedback2
on 11 Oct, 2015 14:11
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I am looking forward to this mission.
But I am not sure what to think whether it will have success. From my understanding it will reflect the sunlight into the shadows and measure spectrum. That means it will be able to obtain information only about the very thin surface part of the regolith, maybe few particle diameters into the soli. Now this makes me wonder if there is any ice directly at the surface.
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#2
by
Phil Stooke
on 11 Oct, 2015 14:38
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Many small craters are secondaries (made by chunks of ejecta from other impacts) and hit more slowly, not necessarily vaporizing ice but just turning over the regolith ("gardening"), mixing ice to significant depths over a billion years. Also, modelling suggests that temperatures which are still very low but a bit higher than the minimum in polar craters (e.g. shaded surface warmed slightly by sunlight reflected off crater rims) allow water ice to diffuse slowly into the porous regolith (and gardening allows porosity to persist). So there may be methods for collecting and retaining ice at depths of a meter or more. There should also be thin surface frosts consisting of recent ice deposits.
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#3
by
turbopumpfeedback2
on 11 Oct, 2015 14:51
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Many small craters are secondaries (made by chunks of ejecta from other impacts) and hit more slowly, not necessarily vaporizing ice but just turning over the regolith ("gardening"), mixing ice to significant depths over a billion years. Also, modelling suggests that temperatures which are still very low but a bit higher than the minimum in polar craters (e.g. shaded surface warmed slightly by sunlight reflected off crater rims) allow water ice to diffuse slowly into the porous regolith (and gardening allows porosity to persist). So there may be methods for collecting and retaining ice at depths of a meter or more. There should also be thin surface frosts consisting of recent ice deposits.
Thanks, that is quite interesting. (Sorry, I shortened my previous post)
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#4
by
TrevorMonty
on 11 Oct, 2015 14:54
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#5
by
Blackstar
on 17 Oct, 2015 01:09
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Here is the presentation from the FISO discussion.
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#6
by
Blackstar
on 17 Oct, 2015 01:21
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#7
by
Blackstar
on 17 Oct, 2015 01:23
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#8
by
savuporo
on 17 Oct, 2015 02:40
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That is a brilliant mission, wish it could fly sooner. Also interesting to see LEON3 winning ground
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#9
by
Warren Platts
on 18 Oct, 2015 18:36
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brilliant mission, wish it could fly sooner.
Hitching their wagon to SLS...
PS Also didn't
Fornaro propose something like this a few years ago?
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#10
by
turbopumpfeedback2
on 27 Nov, 2015 21:00
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#11
by
JH
on 28 Nov, 2015 16:33
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There was a problem with damping oscillations caused by rotating the sail to point it at targets. I'm glad that they were able to close the design using direct illumination.
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#12
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 07:37
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#13
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 07:49
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#14
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 07:52
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#15
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 07:59
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#16
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 21:44
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Cross-post:
twitter.com/planet4589/status/1602067552330465282
Falcon 9 stage 2 from Hakuto-R M1 launch cataloged as 54698 in its SECO-1 orbit of 167 x 297 km x 29.0 deg. JPL Horizons gives expected Lunar Flashlight orbit of 290 x 1118971 km x 29.1 deg; Hakuto-R M1 and Falcon 9 2nd stage current orbits assumed to be similar.
https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1602068092363866113
Current altitude of all three objects is already around 149,000 km
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#17
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 11 Dec, 2022 23:09
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https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1602082045781581827Here is a visualization of the Lunar Flashlight traj from Horizons. It heads out to the Hill Sphere around mid-Jan - a million km offset from L2 - and then falls back to approach the Moon in late March. Hakuto-R probably similar.
Geocentric solar ecliptic XY coords.
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#18
by
Rondaz
on 12 Dec, 2022 10:26
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#19
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 12 Dec, 2022 15:53
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#20
by
sdsds
on 13 Dec, 2022 02:56
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This appears to show LFL will depart past the orbit of the Moon at nearly a right angle to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, headed for the vicinity of Sun-Earth L2.
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#21
by
Rondaz
on 13 Dec, 2022 10:10
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#22
by
Sam Ho
on 16 Jan, 2023 03:01
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NASA’s Lunar Flashlight Team Assessing Spacecraft’s Propulsion System
Jan. 12, 2023
The mission is characterizing its new “green” propulsion system and developing a modified plan for the briefcase-size satellite’s journey to the Moon.
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission successfully launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to begin its four-month journey to the Moon, where the small satellite, or SmallSat, will test several new technologies with a goal of looking for hidden surface ice at the lunar South Pole. While the SmallSat is largely healthy and communicating with NASA’s Deep Space Network, the mission operations team has discovered that three of its four thrusters are underperforming.
The mission team, which first observed the reduced thrust three days after launch, is working to analyze the issue and provide possible solutions. During its cruise, Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system has operated for short-duration pulses of up to a couple seconds at a time. Based on ground testing, the team thinks that the underperformance might be caused by obstructions in the fuel lines that may be limiting the propellant flow to the thrusters.
The team plans to soon operate the thrusters for much longer durations, hoping to clear out any potential thruster fuel line obstructions while carrying out trajectory correction maneuvers that will keep the SmallSat on course to reach its planned orbit around the Moon. In case the propulsion system can’t be restored to full performance, the mission team is drawing up alternative plans to accomplish those maneuvers using the propulsion system with its current reduced-thrust capability. Lunar Flashlight will need to perform daily trajectory correction maneuvers starting in early February to reach lunar orbit about four months from now.
Swooping low over the Moon’s surface, the briefcase-size SmallSat will use a new laser reflectometer built with four near-infrared lasers to shine a light into the permanently shadowed craters at the lunar South Pole to detect surface ice. To achieve this goal with the limited amount of propellent it’s built to carry, Lunar Flashlight will employ an energy-efficient near-rectilinear halo orbit, taking it within 9 miles (15 kilometers) of the lunar South Pole and 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) away at its farthest point.
Only one other spacecraft has employed this type of orbit: NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, which launched in June 2022 to a different near-rectilinear halo orbit, the same one that is planned for Gateway. CAPSTONE also experienced difficulties during its journey to the Moon, and some of the NASA teams who helped the SmallSat reach its planned orbit are lending their expertise to help resolve Lunar Flashlight’s thruster issues.
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Lunar Flashlight is the first interplanetary spacecraft to use a new kind of “green” propellant, called Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic (ASCENT), that is safer to transport and store than the commonly used propellants such as hydrazine. One of the mission’s primary goals is to demonstrate this technology for future use. The propellant was successfully tested with a previous NASA technology demonstration mission in Earth orbit.
Other systems on Lunar Flashlight are performing well, including the never-before-flown Sphinx flight computer, developed by JPL as a low-power, radiation-tolerant option for SmallSats. Also performing as designed, Lunar Flashlight’s upgraded Iris radio – which is used to communicate with the Deep Space Network – features a new precision navigation capability that future small spacecraft will use to rendezvous and land on other solar system bodies. Additional new and groundbreaking systems, such as the mission’s laser reflectometer, will be tested in the coming weeks before the mission enters lunar orbit.
Further updates on the status of the mission will be posted to NASA’s Small Satellite Missions blog.
More About the Mission
Lunar Flashlight is managed for NASA by JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California. The SmallSat is operated by Georgia Tech, including graduate and undergraduate students. The Lunar Flashlight science team is led by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and includes team members from multiple institutions, including the University of California, Los Angeles; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; and the University of Colorado.
The SmallSat’s propulsion system was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with development and integration support from Georgia Tech. NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program funded component development from small businesses including Plasma Processes Inc. (Rubicon) for thruster development, Flight Works for pump development, and Beehive Industries (formerly Volunteer Aerospace) for specific 3D-printed components. The Air Force Research Laboratory also contributed financially to the development of Lunar Flashlight’s propulsion system. Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Read more about the Lunar Flashlight mission here:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/lunar-flashlighthttps://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-lunar-flashlight-team-assessing-spacecrafts-propulsion-system
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#23
by
litton4
on 12 Feb, 2023 12:57
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#24
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 13:53
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
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#25
by
DanClemmensen
on 12 Feb, 2023 14:02
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
I have not been tracking this. How many of these datapoints are from Artemis 1 satellites that had to sit for more than a year after stacking prior to launch?
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#26
by
Jeff Lerner
on 12 Feb, 2023 14:15
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
Does Mars Cube one count .?..if so, that seemed to work well …
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#27
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 15:10
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
Does Mars Cube one count .?..if so, that seemed to work well …
Very simple, no real science, very short lifetime.
Now I think the counter-argument would be the Ingenuity helicopter, which has been remarkably successful.
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#28
by
ccdengr
on 12 Feb, 2023 17:19
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
All of the issues have been with propulsion, not science return. So while I share some of your skepticism, I don't think the current datapoints are really applicable. One imagines that the propulsion problems could be worked out eventually.
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#29
by
Svetoslav
on 12 Feb, 2023 17:22
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I think you're too harsh to poor CubeSats.
I'd like to quote Charles Phillips on The Space Review (
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3364/1 ) : "CubeSats have been like most new systems, with significant “infant mortality”. According to a paper presented at the 30th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, about 33 percent of the “DOA” (dead on arrival) satellites have unknown failure causes.1"
This was about 5 years ago. And we're talking about LEO CubeSats. About 3-4 out of 10 satellites fail to phone home.
My point is that what we saw during the Artemis 1 isn't something out of ordinary. Yes, it was the first case of mass sending CubeSats beyond LEO, but I see no reasons to expect that deep space CubeSats will be different than LEO ones.
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#30
by
Phil Stooke
on 12 Feb, 2023 18:36
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I would suggest LICIAcube as an example of a cubesat with very valuable science return and as far as I know, no technical problems. I'm also not aware of any problems with Biosentinel, which I understand has activated one of its cells. Sadly, not many updates.
Too bad about Flashlight, though.
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#31
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 20:10
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I have my doubts that cubesat (really smallsat) missions make sense for planetary exploration. We now have a number of datapoints on their performance to draw some conclusions.
All of the issues have been with propulsion, not science return. So while I share some of your skepticism, I don't think the current datapoints are really applicable. One imagines that the propulsion problems could be worked out eventually.
But if the spacecraft doesn't reach its operating orbit/location, that's a mission failure. Mars Observer had a propulsion failure that killed it.
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#32
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 20:12
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My point is that what we saw during the Artemis 1 isn't something out of ordinary.
"ordinary" may be the problem. A higher failure rate is acceptable when the spacecraft are really cheap and easily replaceable. The equation is different when we're talking planetary distances--they're no longer "cheap" and they're not easily replaceable.
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#33
by
Svetoslav
on 12 Feb, 2023 20:18
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My point is that what we saw during the Artemis 1 isn't something out of ordinary.
"ordinary" may be the problem. A higher failure rate is acceptable when the spacecraft are really cheap and easily replaceable. The equation is different when we're talking planetary distances--they're no longer "cheap" and they're not easily replaceable.
They may not be cheap in a sense of the cheap LEO CubeSat, but still the cheapest option to explore space. You can send hundreds of CubeSats to Mars for the price of launching a mega-rover like Perseverance.
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#34
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 20:32
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You can send hundreds of CubeSats to Mars for the price of launching a mega-rover like Perseverance.
Please cite a reputable study that says that.
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#35
by
ccdengr
on 12 Feb, 2023 21:56
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But if the spacecraft doesn't reach its operating orbit/location, that's a mission failure. Mars Observer had a propulsion failure that killed it.
So? Did that failure mean that the entire class of MO-sized spacecraft didn't, in your phrase, "make sense?"
If you're suggesting that small spacecraft can never have reliable propulsion for some reason of scaling, that's a possibility, but doesn't seem likely to me.
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#36
by
Blackstar
on 12 Feb, 2023 23:50
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But if the spacecraft doesn't reach its operating orbit/location, that's a mission failure. Mars Observer had a propulsion failure that killed it.
So? Did that failure mean that the entire class of MO-sized spacecraft didn't, in your phrase, "make sense?"
After Mars Observer failed, NASA substantially changed its approach to planetary exploration. They stopped building "Observer" class spacecraft.
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#37
by
ccdengr
on 13 Feb, 2023 03:35
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[After Mars Observer failed, NASA substantially changed its approach to planetary exploration.
Please describe this "substantial" change. I worked on Mars Observer and every Mars mission since and I'm not aware of a large change, other than splitting things up into somewhat smaller missions (except for MRO) and not trying to inappropriately reuse Earth-orbiting spacecraft designs (of course, the first one after MGS was MCO, and we know how well that worked out.)
Again, I'm not sure how this applies to very small missions. It's true that they can be pretty constrained in terms of science, but all of the recent lunar missions seemed like they had managed to squeeze science payloads that justified the expenditure into their constraints.
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#38
by
Blackstar
on 13 Feb, 2023 12:07
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[After Mars Observer failed, NASA substantially changed its approach to planetary exploration.
Please describe this "substantial" change. I worked on Mars Observer and every Mars mission since and I'm not aware of a large change, other than splitting things up into somewhat smaller missions (except for MRO) and not trying to inappropriately reuse Earth-orbiting spacecraft designs (of course, the first one after MGS was MCO, and we know how well that worked out.)
Beginning of the Discovery program. Advent of "faster cheaper better." Setting up APL to compete with JPL for missions. The loss of Mars Observer substantially changed the direction of the planetary exploration program. (Note that Lunar Observer was canceled in 1991 and Mercury Observer around the same time, but their cancellations preceded the MO failure. They were terminated because of cost.)
My point is that the loss of missions can serve as an indication that the overall program is on the wrong track, forcing a reevaluation and different choices after that. The failures of MGS and MCO led to a reevaluation of "faster better cheaper," resulting in increased funding for testing spacecraft. (I would argue that FBC did not really end at that point, but it was changed.) Could the loss of several planetary cubesats, as well as the other programmatic challenges re SIMPLEX, do the same thing now?
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#39
by
ccdengr
on 13 Feb, 2023 16:37
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My point is that the loss of missions can serve as an indication that the overall program is on the wrong track, forcing a reevaluation and different choices after that. The failures of MGS and MCO led to a reevaluation of "faster better cheaper," resulting in increased funding for testing spacecraft. (I would argue that FBC did not really end at that point, but it was changed.) Could the loss of several planetary cubesats, as well as the other programmatic challenges re SIMPLEX, do the same thing now?
Presumably you meant "MPL" above. MGS was a big success and didn't fail until well into its extended mission.
At any rate, while I can imagine that cause and effect looks like this from the perspective of an historian, those of us in the trenches often perceive things as being more random.
I agree that small spacecraft can be challenged to do good science, but I think it would be unfair to condemn the whole concept because of the failures of the Artemis and LF missions. It would be good if the root causes of these failures were analyzed and lessons learned disclosed. With Zurbuchen out, it may be that SIMPLEx just dies for lack of a patron; Janus is in limbo and ESCAPADE assigned to a LV that has never flown and has an unknown development schedule, which seems like an odd choice. And it's not like there's a lot of spare funding lying around.
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#40
by
Don2
on 14 Feb, 2023 05:19
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I don't think cubesats ever did make much sense for interplanetary use. They are extremely volume limited, and tend to be built out of low quality short lived components. Interplanetary spacecraft usually require multi-year missions to reach their targets, and the radiation environment in deep space is worse than in LEO. Short lived components don't work. Communications over the vast distances is also a challenge. A decent sized parabolic dish antenna is neither complex nor expensive, but it doesn't fit inside the ridiculously small volume limits of a cube sat. Making a communications system fold up adds cost and complexity, which is not what you want.
Interplanetary spacecraft also tend to be very fussy about launching at a specific time to hit a specific trajectory. This is incompatible with rideshare.
Cubesats have had some success for missions where multiple spacecraft are needed, for instance LICIACube took good pictures of the DART impact, and Comet Interceptor plans to use several cubesats for close flybys of their target comet because they might lose one due to dust impact.
NASA should look at building small missions around the Electron rocket - Photon spacecraft platform. That would allow a cheap dedicated launch and more available volume while still being mass and cost constrained. An alternative approach might be standardized buses bought in batches which could be customized with different instruments for different missions. Instruments would have to fit within strict and inflexible interface requirements.
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#41
by
deadman1204
on 14 Feb, 2023 21:08
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I don't think cubesats ever did make much sense for interplanetary use. They are extremely volume limited, and tend to be built out of low quality short lived components. Interplanetary spacecraft usually require multi-year missions to reach their targets, and the radiation environment in deep space is worse than in LEO. Short lived components don't work. Communications over the vast distances is also a challenge. A decent sized parabolic dish antenna is neither complex nor expensive, but it doesn't fit inside the ridiculously small volume limits of a cube sat. Making a communications system fold up adds cost and complexity, which is not what you want.
Interplanetary spacecraft also tend to be very fussy about launching at a specific time to hit a specific trajectory. This is incompatible with rideshare.
Cubesats have had some success for missions where multiple spacecraft are needed, for instance LICIACube took good pictures of the DART impact, and Comet Interceptor plans to use several cubesats for close flybys of their target comet because they might lose one due to dust impact.
NASA should look at building small missions around the Electron rocket - Photon spacecraft platform. That would allow a cheap dedicated launch and more available volume while still being mass and cost constrained. An alternative approach might be standardized buses bought in batches which could be customized with different instruments for different missions. Instruments would have to fit within strict and inflexible interface requirements.
Not every mission needs to last for years. With cubesats, you can spend very small amounts of money (a few 10s of millions) to complete a specific mission. This is much better than a discovery mission.
Sure they carry risk, but the budget allows these chances to do something.
In an ideal world, we'd have 2x the discovery missions instead, but that world won't come.
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#42
by
Don2
on 16 Feb, 2023 01:24
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Not every mission needs to last for years. With cubesats, you can spend very small amounts of money (a few 10s of millions) to complete a specific mission. This is much better than a discovery mission.
Sure they carry risk, but the budget allows these chances to do something.
Name a planetary destination you can get to in less than six months?
1/The Moon.
2/ Venus
3/ That's about it.
Multi-year lifetime is pretty much unavoidable for planetary missions. Also, the deep space radiation environment is much worse than low Earth orbit.
Another thing cubesats lack is delta-v. Discovery missions typically have a fuel fraction of 0.5.
Cubesats might be marginally acceptable for a low Earth orbit observation mission, but the technology is fundamentally unsuited to planetary exploration.
What would a low cost generic planetary exploration spacecraft look like? Start with fuel tanks and a propulsion system. Aim for a fuel fraction of 0.5 or better. The first planetary probes, the Mariner series, were about 260kg. The probe could be that size or smaller, with a dry mass of 100kg or less. Add a 50-100cm parabolic dish for communications. Design for at least a 3 year lifetime in deep space. If using rideshare, have multiple back-up plans including launches to GTO. Electron is a little too small for planetary launches, but it is cheap and reliable so maybe you would try to find a way to make it work.
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#43
by
Phil Stooke
on 16 Feb, 2023 06:45
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I agree with your statements here but will just add one contrary point. LICIAcube succeeded very nicely in what it needed to do by following a sort of hybrid approach. It was carried to its destination and deployed close to the target. So the need for propellant was much less than if it flew the trajectory alone. This might suggest that cubesats to Mars or a main belt asteroid could piggyback on another mission and still succeed nicely. An example might be a Lucy-type flyby of an asteroid with a cubesat deployed on approach to image other parts of the target, or a Deimos observation cubesat deployed from a lander on approach. Larger is still better but there might be some utility in this.
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#44
by
deadman1204
on 16 Feb, 2023 13:45
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Not every mission needs to last for years. With cubesats, you can spend very small amounts of money (a few 10s of millions) to complete a specific mission. This is much better than a discovery mission.
Sure they carry risk, but the budget allows these chances to do something.
Name a planetary destination you can get to in less than six months?
1/The Moon.
2/ Venus
3/ That's about it.
Multi-year lifetime is pretty much unavoidable for planetary missions. Also, the deep space radiation environment is much worse than low Earth orbit.
Another thing cubesats lack is delta-v. Discovery missions typically have a fuel fraction of 0.5.
Cubesats might be marginally acceptable for a low Earth orbit observation mission, but the technology is fundamentally unsuited to planetary exploration.
What would a low cost generic planetary exploration spacecraft look like? Start with fuel tanks and a propulsion system. Aim for a fuel fraction of 0.5 or better. The first planetary probes, the Mariner series, were about 260kg. The probe could be that size or smaller, with a dry mass of 100kg or less. Add a 50-100cm parabolic dish for communications. Design for at least a 3 year lifetime in deep space. If using rideshare, have multiple back-up plans including launches to GTO. Electron is a little too small for planetary launches, but it is cheap and reliable so maybe you would try to find a way to make it work.
Mars - 4-6 months as well.
Near earth asteroids? There are plenty of those as well.
Even just those, being able to send more missions to:
1. venus
2. moon
3. mars (we HAVE sent cube sats to mars already)
4. near earth asteroids
That would be insane to have more missions to those places. Just cause they are close doesn't mean they are not interesting. I'm sure it would be rather hard to find someone who was bored from ALL the missions to venus in the last few decades that have answered all our questions.
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#45
by
Blackstar
on 13 May, 2023 01:54
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#46
by
eeergo
on 13 May, 2023 17:45
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#47
by
vjkane
on 13 May, 2023 23:30
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I agree with your statements here but will just add one contrary point. LICIAcube succeeded very nicely in what it needed to do by following a sort of hybrid approach. It was carried to its destination and deployed close to the target. So the need for propellant was much less than if it flew the trajectory alone. This might suggest that cubesats to Mars or a main belt asteroid could piggyback on another mission and still succeed nicely. An example might be a Lucy-type flyby of an asteroid with a cubesat deployed on approach to image other parts of the target, or a Deimos observation cubesat deployed from a lander on approach. Larger is still better but there might be some utility in this.
I expect that we may see continued experiments with cubesats for lunar, near Earth asteroid, Venus, and Mars. "May" because these missions are still tens of millions of dollars. I believe that NASA is seeking funding for one new cubesat mission this decade.
I believe that there will be a period of developing and proving new technologies. It will take time.
A number of people have suggested that the sweet spot for planetary missions (lunar and NEA may be exceptions) may be larger than cubesats because of the requirement for greater propulsive and communications capability (and weaker sunlight than in Earth orbit for some missions). Perhaps something like a hundred or two kilograms.
Carry along cubesats are another possibility. Theoretically, EnVision, VERITAS (if it flies), or the Mars sample return orbiter could carry along cubesats to be released in orbit. I say theoretically because I haven't seen any mention of this being considered.
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#48
by
Bob Shaw
on 14 May, 2023 00:04
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The MASCOT and other asteroid hoppers are cubesats by most definitions, and even the Chinese manned spacecraft subsatellites (not to mention Apollo Particles & Fields). Whether or not NASA invests, there will be other deep space cubsesats whether for practicality, science or politics.
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#49
by
russianhalo117
on 16 May, 2023 18:53
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#50
by
Blackstar
on 23 Mar, 2024 14:36
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#51
by
Comga
on 23 Mar, 2024 23:29
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It may be that people are being a bit too pessimistic about cubesats for lunar science.
There was a time, not so long ago, where the common knowledge was that "No cubesat has ever done real science."
This was disproved by the Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment from LASP in Boulder, CO.
Now lots of bits of science is done with cubesats, and lots of commerce, even with sub-1U cubesats.
These don't replace Hubble, or even WISE level missions, but they do good work.
But these all prioritize their science.
Lunar Flashlight was a grab-bag of technology developments
Green propulsion
Additively manufactured propulsion elements
New radiation tolerant computer
Multi-wavelength lidar
Plus lots of student participation.
Only if all of these elements worked, not just proved they could work, would the real scientific observations be done.
If those observations were really needed by HEOMD's Artemis, they would have split off the lidar onto more proven subsystems, of which there are plenty, and left the rest of the tech dev for the STMD.
Tell me you don't believe that Advance Space could host the Flashlight lidar on a version of the Capstone spacecraft now in lunar NRHO.
