A deactivated Cubesat Artemis 1 thruster motor during flight to the moon

FLORIDA – One of the cubes Artemis mission 1 the so-called LunaH-Map failed to burn out its engine while flying across the moon. Even though it failed to perform an important maneuver, the LunaH-Map cubesat still recovered data about the water fighter mission in moon .

CubeSat is a cube-shaped mini satellite with a side length of only 10 cm and a compact weight of 1.33 kg. This size is the standard CubeSat, called 1 Unit (1U).

The LunaH-Map spacecraft was one of 10 cubesats launched as payloads on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. LunaH-Map was designed to map the distribution and abundance of hydrogen and water ice near the Moon’s south pole.

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The data is of great interest to NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to build a manned research outpost in this region. Even though he failed to crank the engine during the flyby of the moon, LunaH-Map was still able to salvage his water hunting mission.

The Cubesat was supposed to perform an engine burn during its flyby of the Moon on Monday, November 21, 2022, but failed. “It’s probably due to a stuck valve in the propulsion system,” NASA officials said on Thursday (11/24/2022) as quoted by Space.com.

But not all missions fail or are lost. LunaH-Map’s other systems appear to be functioning normally and are warming up the valves, keeping the propulsion system online.

“If the propulsion system is able to achieve thrust in the coming months, the mission may still be able to recover some or all of LunaH-Map’s original science mission,” NASA officials said.

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LunaH-Map, led by researchers at Arizona State University, isn’t the only Artemis 1 cubesat with problems. Japan’s OMOTENASHI probe cubesat encountered communication problems and consequently failed to shoot down a small lander on the Moon.

The cube from NASA’s Scout Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) probe appears to have been silent since its Nov. 16 launch, as has Team Miles’ citizen scientist cube. It is possible that the LunIR spacecraft could also have some problems.

Artemis 1, the first mission of the Artemis program, sent an uncrewed Orion capsule on a nearly 26-day journey to lunar orbit and back. Orion is scheduled to launch into a very retrograde orbit around the Moon on Friday, November 25.

The Orion capsule will spend about a week there and then return to Earth on December 11th. If all goes to plan, Artemis 2 will launch astronauts around the moon in 2024.

(wib)