{"id":30756,"date":"2025-02-28T09:42:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T04:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=30756"},"modified":"2025-04-15T23:04:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T17:34:39","slug":"lunar-trailblazer-spacecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/lunar-trailblazer-spacecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Recently, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral carrying NASA\u2019s Lunar Trailblazer orbiter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>About Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an initiative of the <strong>National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Objective:<\/strong> It is being sent to find and <strong>map water on the moon\u2019s surface.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It is about the size of a dishwasher and relies on a relatively <strong>small propulsion system.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It weighs about 200 kg and measures about 3.5 metres wide when its solar panels are fully deployed.<\/li>\n<li>It is scheduled to <strong>perform a series of moon flybys<\/strong> and looping orbits over a span of several months to position itself to map the surface in detail.<\/li>\n<li>It eventually will orbit at <strong>an altitude of roughly 100 km<\/strong> and collect high-resolution images of targeted areas to determine the form, distribution and abundance of water and to better understand the lunar water cycle.<\/li>\n<li>It is carrying two instruments to achieve its science objectives:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper<\/strong> (HVM3): It will look at the moon\u2019s surface for a telltale pattern of light given off by water.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lunar Thermal Mapper<\/strong> (LTM): It will map and measure the lunar surface temperature.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>When used in conjunction, these two instruments provide the ability to simultaneously identify the various forms of water on the moon, mineralogy, and temperature.<\/li>\n<li>It was built by <strong>Lockheed Martin\u2019s space division.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong> Why is the lunar trailblazer important?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong> The small satellite mission will map the Moon to help scientists better understand where its water is, what form it&#8217;s in, how much is there, and how it changes over time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong> Who is working on the Lunar Trailblazer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong> The Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft will be built and tested by Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/nasa-launches-satellite-on-mission-to-detect-water-on-the-moon\/article69269408.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft is an initiative of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}