NASA Ends Lunar Trailblazer Mission; Spacecraft To Drift Into Deep Space After Loss of Contact

NASA has formally concluded the Lunar Trailblazer mission, a small satellite designed to map water on the Moon, after repeated attempts to regain contact proved unsuccessful.

The mission officially ended on July 31, 2025, following five months of recovery efforts that began when communications were lost the day after launch.

The Mission

Launched on February 26, 2025, Lunar Trailblazer was intended to create high-resolution maps of water ice and hydrated minerals on the Moon’s surface. Its science objectives included determining the abundance, distribution, and forms of lunar water, as well as tracking how these resources change over time.

These insights were expected to directly support NASA’s Artemis program, future robotic exploration, and potential commercial activity on the lunar surface, while also contributing to broader understanding of water cycles on airless worlds.

The Launch

Lunar Trailblazer flew as a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lunar lander mission.

The mission lifted off at 7:16 p.m. EST on February 26 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The small satellite separated from the rocket roughly 48 minutes after liftoff, entering its trajectory toward the Moon.

Operators at Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) in Pasadena established initial communications at 8:13 p.m. EST on launch day. However, contact was lost within 24 hours, preventing any further spacecraft commanding.

Loss of Communication and Recovery Attempts

Without two-way communications, the operations team was unable to perform necessary thruster maneuvers to keep Lunar Trailblazer on course. Telemetry received before the signal was lost suggested that the spacecraft’s solar arrays were misaligned, leaving its batteries without adequate sunlight to recharge.

Over the following months, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Caltech, Lockheed Martin, and international partners coordinated efforts to reacquire the spacecraft’s signal. Ground-based radar and optical tracking indicated that Lunar Trailblazer was slowly tumbling as it drifted away from the Moon and into deep space.

Credit: NASA EYES

“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...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.” - Andrew Klesh, Lunar Trailblazer’s project systems engineer at JPL

Despite those efforts, Lunar Trailblazer eventually passed beyond a recoverable distance. Even if the spacecraft powered on, its signal would be too weak to support data transmission or command reception.

Scientific and Technological Legacy

Though the spacecraft never reached the Moon, the mission’s instruments and technology are expected to contribute to future exploration efforts.

Lunar Trailblazer carried two primary instruments:

• High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) – Built by JPL to detect and map the distribution of water and key minerals across the lunar surface.

• Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) – Built by the University of Oxford with funding from the UK Space Agency to measure surface temperature variations and study the composition of silicate rocks and soils.

“We’re immensely disappointed that our spacecraft didn’t get to the Moon, but the two science instruments we developed, like the teams we brought together, are world-class...This collective knowledge and the technology developed will cross-pollinate to other projects as the planetary science community continues work to better understand the Moon’s water.” - Bethany Ehlmann, Lunar Trailblazer’s Principal Investigator at Caltech

The HVM3’s design will live on through the Ultra Compact Imaging Spectrometer for the Moon (UCIS-Moon), an instrument recently selected by NASA for a future orbital mission. UCIS-Moon will carry the same spectrometer design as HVM3, providing high-resolution maps of surface water and minerals from lunar orbit.

Lunar Trailblazer was part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, which develops low-cost planetary science missions using rideshare opportunities with primary payloads. SIMPLEx missions are intentionally higher risk, trading greater tolerance for potential mission loss against significant cost savings and the ability to test innovative mission architectures.

“At NASA, we undertake high-risk, high-reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to find revolutionary ways of doing new science...While it was not the outcome we had hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk for future, low-cost small satellites to do innovative science as we prepare for a sustained human presence on the Moon.” - Nicky Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The mission was managed by NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. JPL provided system engineering, the HVM3 instrument, mission design, and navigation. Lockheed Martin Space built the spacecraft bus, integrated the flight system, and supported operations. Caltech’s IPAC handled mission operations, including planning, scheduling, and sequencing. The University of Oxford delivered the LTM instrument with funding from the UK Space Agency.

Although Lunar Trailblazer’s journey ended far earlier than planned, the mission’s collaborative spirit, technology development, and operational lessons will help inform the next generation of lunar exploration spacecraft.