TrailBlazer 2001

TrailBlazer 2001 [TransOrbital]

TrailBlazer 2001 was to be the first commercial lunar mission.

The TrailBlazer spacecraft was to be 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) Star-20 kick motor. The basic bus was to contain 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
• Photovoltaic cells and batteries to provide power.

For the inaugural TrailBlazer lunar imaging mission the bus was to carry 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.

A mass model (TrailBlazer-2001-Dummy) was launched in 2002 to test the launch dynamics. Apparently the project did not move forward and is now unlikely to take place.