TrailBlazer Spacecraft

The TrailBlazer spacecraft is a multi-purpose spacecraft bus designed for missions beyond geosynchronous orbit. It is a microspacecraft, massing approximately 100 kg fueled - not including the solid-fuel Lunar Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) kick motor. The basic bus contains the following features:

• On-board mono-propellant maneuvering and attitude-control thrusters
• Redundant flight control computers
• Sun angle, Earth/Moon horizon, and star-field navigation and attitude-control sensors
• Inertial Measurement Unit for attitude sensing and control
• S-Band communications link
• Photovoltaics cells and batteries to provide power.

For the inaugural TrailBlaser lunar imaging mission the bus is carrying the following equipment:

• Two high-resolution video cameras and lenses: one medium field-of-view (FOV) for lunar surface mapping and one narrow FOV camera for high-resolution imaging of specific targets.
• A high data-rate X-band transmitter with a narrow-beam parabolic antenna.

Click the "Launch" button above for further information on how the TrailBlazer mission will be launched.