Posted: Sat, Aug 9, 2025, 11:02 AM ET (1502 GMT)
NASA has formally ended a lunar orbiter smallsat mission more than five months after losing contact with it. NASA said Monday it terminated the Lunar Trailblazer mission at the end of July after failing to restore contact with the spacecraft. Controllers lost contact with the smallsat a day after its launch in late February, and the spacecraft was not heard from again. The spacecraft appeared to be in a slow spin and its solar arrays were not properly aligned with the sun, depriving it of power. Mission managers had hoped that the changing orientation of the spacecraft with the sun as it cruised into deep space might restore power. Lunar Trailblazer was intended to go into orbit around the moon to map water ice. It is one of several smallsat planetary missions launched in recent years that suffered mission-ending technical problems.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  NASA/JPL release