NASA’s Lunar Flashlight satellite discovered from Earth on its way to the Moon by Indian astronomer
Two astronomers tracked NASA’s Moon Flashlight satellite using a remote 0.5-meter telescope in Australia.
NASA launched the Lunar Surface Flashlight Mission on December 11, 2022. It is a planned mission that uses lasers to find water on the surface of ice inside the southernmost craters. of the moon, is the part of the moon in eternal darkness. On the same day, another private HAKUTO-R spacecraft mission was launched.
In a remarkable achievement, on the journey towards moonboth spacecraft were photographed by Indian astronomer Vishnu Reddy and graduate student Adam Battle, from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Space4 Center.
The Moon Flashlight small satellite is expected to enter a scientific orbit around the moon in April 2023. The two astronomers have been monitoring them using a 0.5 remote control instrument. meters. telescope In Australia. Their actual positions in the sky were found with the help of data from the horizon system at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In the image provided, there is a large black dot that is the HAKUTO-R lunar lander and the group of gray fuzzy pixels visible in the image is the Moon Flashlight. And the long trails are the stars.
These images were taken when both spacecraft were 145,000 miles apart Earth, which is 39 hours since launch. As we all know, the brighter the object, the darker it is, so the black and white in the image have been inverted. 80 images were taken of the spacecraft’s motion and speed. This leads to an image of the stars as the path and the dots as two spaceships.
The Moon Flashlight is a small satellite mission that plans to use lasers to search for surface water ice inside the permanently obscured craters of the Moon’s South Pole.
The small satellite, or SmallSat, was launched from its dispenser to begin a four-month journey to the Moon. The Moon Flashlight will never return to Earth.
To get close to the Moon’s surface, SmallSat will use so-called near-straight coronal orbits – designed to save energy – that will take it within just 9 miles (15 km) of the Sun’s South Pole. moon and 43,000 miles (70,000 km) away at its furthest point.
