Distinctive Voices – Lunar Trailblazer: A Pioneering SmallSat for Lunar Water and Lunar Geology

The upcoming Lunar Trailblazer mission is among the first of a new type of NASA mission: small satellites for planetary exploration. Lunar Trailblazer follows up on one of the most surprising discoveries of the 2000s, water on the Moon. Trailblazer is an orbiter that will simultaneously map the Moon’s composition and temperature from a 100 km polar orbit. The mission will make high resolution maps at key targets to determine where there is water, its form (OH, H₂O or ice), its abundance, and possible time-variation as a function of temperature. Lunar Trailblazer’s most sensitive measurement is to peer in permanently shadowed regions and use terrain-scattered light to find where there is ice. While achieving these science objectives, Trailblazer will do reconnaissance of potential future landing sites for human and robotic exploration. Lunar Trailblazer is scheduled to launch as a secondary payload on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lander launch with SpaceX, scheduled for late 2024.

Bethany L. Ehlmann, California Institute of Technology