NASA may have found the reason Lunar Flashlight was never able to reach orbit around the moon.
These problems left the craft unable to perform the maneuvers needed to go into orbit around the moon and JPL was forced to end the Lunar Flashlight mission on May 12, a mere five months after its launch.reported that NASA engineers did attempt a technique to perform trajectory correction maneuvers with a single thruster that initially worked. However, a ninth attempt of the maneuver saw thrust drop to zero.
Further investigation by the agency revealed that the source of the debris in the thrusters was likely sintered titanium particles that may have dislodged themselves from the interior of propellant lines due to the vibrations that occurred before and during launch.On Monday, Chris Baker, program executive for small spacecraft technology programs in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said at a NASA town hall meeting that the agency still deemed the mission a success.
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