NASA's ice-hunting cubesat lunar mission is over, thanks to a stuck valve
NASA has terminated the LunaH-Map mission after a stuck valve on the ice-hunting cubesat prevented it from reaching the Moon's south pole.
The briefcase-sized spacecraft was launched on November 16 last year as part of the Artemis I flight, which was testing the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for its next crewed mission to the Moon. LunaH-Map – or Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper – performed a flyby around the Moon but failed to enter the planned orbit. The goal was to study the lunar south pole and to dip to altitudes as low as 10 kilometers above the surface to look for ice hidden in regions permanently shadowed by the Sun.
A stuck valve prevented the propulsion system from working properly, meaning it couldn't change course to get on the right orbit. Mission Control attempted to fix the issue by instructing the cubesat to heat the valve. Despite repeated attempts over six months, the valve did not fully open. NASA ceased operations back in May, and announced the decision this month.
LunaH-Map principal investigator Craig Hardgrove, of Arizona State University, told said in May that the delayed launch of Artemis I because of prolonged bad weather might have contributed to the fault."We had informed NASA that this propulsion system was not built to withstand a long launch delay," he isThe mission, under NASA's SIMPLEx program, hasn't been a complete flop, however.
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