NASA

NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer ended its mission to the Moon on July 31. Despite extensive efforts, mission operators were unable to establish two-way communications after losing contact with the spacecraft the day following its Feb. 26 launch.

The small satellite separated as planned from the rocket about 48 minutes after launch to begin its flight to the Moon. Mission operators at Caltech’s IPAC in Pasadena established communications with the small spacecraft at 8:13 p.m. EST. Contact was lost the next day.

Without two-way communications, the team was unable to fully diagnose the spacecraft or perform the thruster operations needed to keep Lunar Trailblazer on its flight path.

The limited data the mission team had received from Lunar Trailblazer indicated that the spacecraft’s solar arrays were not properly oriented toward the Sun, which caused its batteries to become depleted.

For several months, collaborating organizations around the world — many of which volunteered their assistance — listened for the spacecraft’s radio signal and tracked its position. Ground radar and optical observations indicated that Lunar Trailblazer was in a slow spin as it headed farther into deep space.

“As Lunar Trailblazer drifted far beyond the Moon, our models showed that the solar panels might receive more sunlight, perhaps charging the spacecraft’s batteries to a point it could turn on its radio,” said Andrew Klesh, Lunar Trailblazer’s project systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The global community’s support helped us better understand the spacecraft’s spin, pointing, and trajectory. In space exploration, collaboration is critical — this gave us the best chance to try to regain contact.”

However, as time passed, Lunar Trailblazer became too distant to recover as its telecommunications signals would have been too weak for the mission to receive telemetry and to command.

• Oleg Platonov (Roscosmos): A former Lieutenant Colonel in the Russian Air Force, Platonov was selected as a cosmonaut in 2018. This will be his first spaceflight. His inclusion is part of the U.S.-Russia seat exchange agreement, which ensures a continual Russian and American presence aboard the ISS.
• Kimiya Yui (JAXA): Representing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Yui previously spent nearly five months on the ISS during Soyuz TMA-17M in 2015. Once aboard, he’ll reunite with fellow Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, currently serving on Crew-10.
• Mike Fincke (NASA): A veteran astronaut with over a year of spaceflight experience across two Soyuz missions and one Shuttle flight, Fincke was long slated to fly on Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test. However, Starliner delays led NASA to reassign him to a SpaceX Dragon mission instead. He’ll serve as Crew-11’s pilot.
• Zena Cardman (NASA): A member of NASA’s 2017 astronaut class, “The Turtles,” Cardman is making her first trip to space. She was initially assigned to Crew-9, but the reshuffling caused by Starliner’s flight test left empty seats that needed to be filled by returning astronauts. Cardman was reassigned to Crew-11 as a result.

On Monday, NASA announced that Makenzie Lystrup will leave her post as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, August 1.

Officials at NASA were caught unaware by the announcement on Wednesday evening. They had been expecting the existing acting administrator, Janet Petro, to remain in place at least through the end of the year while a new nominee was put forth to lead NASA and confirmed by Congress.

Sources indicated that although Petro did not have a particularly high standing within the Trump administration, she did nothing to be removed from her position. Rather, it seems that Trump wanted someone he liked and trusted running NASA. This is probably a benefit for the agency, as it will give NASA a direct line to the president. For example, Duffy can text Trump if NASA needs something or is being treated unfairly during the budgeting process.

Petro did not have that kind of political sway, and this is a White House in which access to the president matters a great deal. The agency was in great peril, as there was no one in headquarters who could push back on harmful things being done to NASA or get things done. Duffy will have that kind of pull. But he will also be incredibly busy already with the Department of Transportation.

There are also some reasons to be concerned about NASA under Duffy. Because he does not come from a space background, but rather a political one, Duffy likely views his mission at NASA as carrying out the vision of the space agency established by the president's budget request, which slashes funding for science and makes significant changes to NASA's deep space exploration plans.

NASA finally has some clarity on who will lead the agency over the next several months, and it is a person trusted by the president. Duffy is also viewed as a capable leader and experienced politician who understands how Washington, DC, works. It's possible that Duffy will listen to the concerns of leaders at NASA in the coming weeks and seek to offset some of the more Draconian (and difficult to understand) cuts by Vought's office.

However, it is also possible that he takes his mandate to slash NASA's budget and workforce seriously, and in doing so would be vastly more effective than Petro.