Lunar Flashlight was a low-cost CubeSat lunar orbiter mission to explore, locate, and estimate size and composition of water ice deposits on the Moon for future exploitation by robots or humans.[1][3][2][4][5][6]
The spacecraft, of the 6U CubeSat format, was developed by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.[4] It was selected in early 2015 by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) for launch in 2022 as a secondary payload for the Artemis 1 mission, though it missed the integration window to be included on the mission.[7] Lunar Flashlight was remanifested to launch as a rideshare with the Hakuto-R Mission 1 on a Falcon 9 Block 5. The launch took place on 11 December 2022.[8]
A failure of the craft's propulsion system resulted in Lunar Flashlight being unable to enter orbit around the Moon and NASA terminated the mission on May 12, 2023.[9][10] The spacecraft has since been abandoned in a solar orbit after flying by Earth on May 17 for a coincidental gravity assist.
^ ab"Lunar Flashlight Mission Information". JPL (NASA). April 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ abHayne, P. O.; Cohen, B. A.; B. T., B. T. (21 March 2016). Lunar Flashlight: Illuminating the Moon's South Pole. 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Retrieved 11 March 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^Cohen, Barbara A. (2013). Lunar Flashlight: Mapping lunar surface volatiles using a CubeSat(PDF). Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (2013). NASA. Retrieved 11 March 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ ab"NASA TechPort: Lunar Flashlight Project". NASA TechPort. NASA. 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^"Lunar Flashlight". Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). NASA. 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^Wall, Mike (9 October 2014). "NASA Is Studying How to Mine the Moon for Water". SPACE.com. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
^Ohana, Lavie (3 October 2021). "Four Artemis I CubeSats miss their ride". Space Scout. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
^Rosenstein, Sawyer (11 December 2022). "SpaceX launches Falcon 9 carrying private Japanese moon lander". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 11 December 2022.
^Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "NASA Calls End to Lunar Flashlight After Some Tech Successes". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 12 May 2023.
^Foust, Jeff (9 August 2023). "Clogged propellant lines doomed NASA lunar cubesat mission". SpaceNews. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
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