NASA's ice-hunting cubesat lunar mission is over, thanks to a stuck valve

NASA has terminated the LunaH-Map mission after a stuck valve on the ice-hunting cubesat prevented it from reaching the Moon's south pole. The briefcase-sized spacecraft was launched on November 16 last year as part of the Artemis I flight, which was testing the agency's Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in …

[Doctor Syntax]

Reminders that space really is difficult emphasise just how good the engineering of the Voyagers etc. really is.

[imanidiot]

It's a shame the majority of the co-payloads on Artemis 1 have failed because of the incessant and never ending launch delays. Most of them failed likely because of how long they were stuck inside the inter-stage after integration without being serviceable

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Will this mean -

Space Titanic 2 ?

[spold]

Re: Will this mean -

Hey give us an old dustbin and a few fireworks and we could arrange tourist trips to see it....

[Will Godfrey]

Seems to be a common problem

Several SpaceX failures have been due to this, and I vaguely remember it turns up with some of the others from time to time. I wonder if there is some sort of conceptual issue.

[Kapsalon]

Re: Seems to be a common problem

SpaceX problems? You mean from the time they were developing Falcon 1? Or are you referring to the payload SpaceX brought into orbit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches

[Spherical Cow]

So what happens to it now? Does it just stay in orbit around the moon for millennia? Are we starting to fill lunar orbit with junk?