Lunar Trailblazer
Mission Overview
Lunar Trailblazer is a pioneering smallsat which will detect and map water on the lunar surface. Lunar Trailblazer will enable a better understanding of the Moon’s water and geology by determining the form, abundance, and distribution of water across the lunar surface.
Mission Quick Facts
| Launch Date | Feb. 26, 2025 |
| Launch Site | Cape Canaveral, Florida |
| Launch Vehicle | SpaceX Falcon 9 |
| Rideshare | Intuitive Machines lunar lander (IM-2) and two other spacecraft |
| Operations Phase | 24 Months |
| Spacecraft Mass | 200 kg when fully fueled |
| Navigation | NASA/JPL |
| Spacecraft Design & Build | Lockheed Martin |
| Operations | Caltech/IPAC |
| Science Team | 9 Institutions in the US and UK, Caltech-led |
Science Objectives
- Determine form, abundance, and distribution of H2 O/OH across targeted areas of sunlit lunar surface, including variability by latitude, soil maturity, and lithology.
- Test for and measure the possible temporal variations of H2 O/OH across targeted areas of sunlit portions of the lunar surface.
- Determine the form and abundance of H2 O ice and bound H2 O/OH in targeted permanently shadowed regions (PSRs).
- Understand how localized gradients in albedo and surface temperature affect ice and OH/H2 O concentration, including the potential identification of new, small cold traps.
Science Instruments
To accomplish its science goals, Lunar Trailblazer will collect data using two science instruments. The two instruments will be used simultaneously to collect two nested “data cubes” that provide the ability to simultaneously identify the various forms of water on the Moon, mineralogy, and temperature.
With its two instruments, Lunar Trailblazer will collect data for targeted locations across the Moon's surface. Each pixel in an image represents a spectrum, which can provide information about the presence of different forms of water and lunar mineralogy. This information is used to create maps of the lunar surface.
- High Resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and funded by NASA, is optimized to collect information about lunar water by measuring visible and infrared light that is reflected off of the lunar surface from the Sun.
- Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), provided by the University of Oxford and funded by the UK Space Agency, will provide simultaneous information about the thermophysical properties of the lunar surface.
Five Key Takeaways
- Lunar Trailblazer maps water, minerals, and temperature simultaneously with two science instruments: The High Resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), provided by the University of Oxford and funded by the UK Space Agency.
- Lunar Trailblazer’s high-resolution maps of the form and amount of water on the Moon will help determine where to send future robotic and human missions for measurements of water ice and possible extraction of water as a resource.
- Lunar Trailblazer is among the first of a new NASA SIMPLEx class of mission that tolerates higher risk to enable more planetary science to be conducted.
- Lunar Trailblazer is a university-led mission and undergraduate students from Pasadena City College and Caltech have trained to work alongside professional staff in mission operations.
- Lunar Trailblazer’s team includes the United Kingdom as a partner and mission members in more than seven states
Key Questions About the Lunar Water Cycle
1. How much water is on the Moon?
While we know there is water on the Moon, we do not know how much. Some data collected by prior missions suggest that there may be up to 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons) of water ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles. Finding and quantifying these deposits of water ice is important for future exploration.
2. Where does lunar water come from?
Current evidence suggests that comets and asteroids may have brought some water to the Moon. Interplanetary dust particles and micrometeorites may also deliver water to the lunar surface. In addition, some water may have been sourced from the lunar interior by ancient volcanism. The Sun may also play a role—a stream of hydrogen from the Sun, called the solar wind, may combine with oxygen on the Moon to form lunar water directly on the surface.
Student Collaboration
A unique feature of the Lunar Trailblazer mission is that undergraduate students are infused in all aspects of science and operations.
Students work on console during operations, communicating with spacecraft and the DSN. They make graphics to communicate Lunar Trailblazer science. They design ground software for telemetry parsing and visualization and science image processing. They create webpages explaining the mission and profiling team members. They test procedures for spacecraft commanding and vet contingency scenarios.
Funded by a NASA “Student Collaboration” option, Pasadena City College and Caltech students enhance the mission by their efforts and receive training for future space careers.
