Lessons Learned from the Lunar Flashlight Mission

Speaker: Philippe Adell, Ph.D., NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Wednesday, July 10, 2024
10:00AM-11:00AM Pacific Daylight Time

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Please contact Julianna.L.Fishman@nasa.gov if you experience issues with the audiovisual connection to this webinar.

Abstract: Lunar Flashlight (LF), a first of its kind deep space 6U CubeSat equipped with four new technologies, was a NASA-JPL technology demonstration mission with a science goal of investigating the distribution of surface ice deposits at the Lunar south pole. The mission was developed and managed by JPL, with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) leading the development of the propulsion system. The Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) Space Systems Design Laboratory (SSDL) designed and integrated the propulsion system and served as the home of the mission operations team. The science was led by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The spacecraft launched Dec. 11th 2022 and was operated for its primary mission until June 30th 2023. Today, The LF spacecraft is still being operated by GT and is currently in a heliocentric orbit.

LF mission was partially successful since it could not get to his science goals at the moon due to its propulsion system underperforming. However, LF was an absolute success about demonstrating new technologies in a space environment. It successfully demonstrated four new technologies: 1) A new green monopropellant miniaturized propulsion system; 2) A new command and data handling sub-system; 3) A new version of the IRIS deep space radio and 4) A new miniaturized 4-IR lasers reflectometer. About the latter, the new miniaturized science instrument performed even better than expected; with a better detector signal-to-noise ratio than seen in ground testing. Laser stress tests demonstrated the instrument’s ability to perform 90-second experiments in the space environment. The science team and instrument flight data model indicated that this new payload would have had the capability to detect surface ice water at the moon. In addition, the power subsystem, including solar arrays, EPS, and batteries, exceeded prelaunch analyses, providing the system with plenty of power margin during all activities including off-sun thrusting and Earth eclipse. Then, the new command-and-data-handling (C&DH) sub-system and flight software (FSW) also performed as expected, allowing the team to reliably control the spacecraft with more than 380 contact over 7 months and also demonstrating an in-flight FSW update. Finally, the new Iris deep space radio with updated firmware, also exceeded expectations, operating continuously in full-duplex mode for over 80 hours without exceeding thermal limits, and acting as the first in-flight demonstration of Pseudorandom- Noise (PN) Delta Differential One way Ranging (DDOR) with NASA’s Deep Space Network.

This presentation will focus on providing an overview of the LF mission, from implementation through operation. It will summarize the technology successes demonstrated in flight as well as the issues encountered during operation with the propulsion system. We will summarize the lessons learned and knowledge acquired during this incredible experience so that it can benefit the community and next generation of small spacecraft developments.

Bio: Philippe Adell started working at the NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology in Feb. 2007 after completing his MS (2003) and PhD (2006) in Electrical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He also graduated from the polytechnic institute of the University of Montpellier (France), with a MS (1999) in material science and technologies.

During his 17 years at NASA-JPL, he started as a radiation expert where he conducted/performed radiation effects research and provided mission assurance expertise to several JPL flight projects such as Juno Orbiter, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and Europa Clipper. As PI, he led many high visibility research and development initiatives. One of his developments which gained the interests of the US DoD; was the development of the first intelligent radiation-hardened power system, an architectural design for small satellite applications.

Since 2018, he moved into project management and system engineering in the advanced concept formulation section at JPL and supported the planetary program office at JPL as the small satellite project system engineer lead. During this time, he supported as a project interface the successful flight demonstration of the Leonardo Mars Helicopter Scout (LMHS) and was the project system engineer and deputy project manager of the Lunar Flashlight 6U small satellite project. Recently, he is leading the formulation of a multi-small satellites mission concept to Apophis, an asteroid that will come close to earth in 2029, in collaboration with the French space agency. Phase A project has started as of May 1^st 2024.

S3VI encourages the community to submit questions before the webinar to enable more directed responses. Please send questions to craig.d.burkhard@nasa.gov.

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