Search this Site

Trailblazing a private mission to the Moon

By Steve Bartlett

A small company is developing the world’s first commercial mission to the Moon, according to Dr. Richard Van Allen, member of the board at TransOrbital Inc. Dr. Van Allen briefed a group of space enthusiasts on the firm’s work at the OASIS 25th anniversary dinner on July 19.

Trailblazer Structural Test Article. (photo courtesy of TransOrbital)

The mission, dubbed Trailblazer, is intended to be an inexpensive precursor to a series of probes the company plans to send to the lunar surface. The spacecraft will serve as a flying camera platform, carrying high-resolution video cameras, with the goal of returning scientific and artistic video throughout the mission.

TransOrbital will launch the small robotic surveyor in the coming months aboard a Russian Dnepr rocket, along with a number of other payloads from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Khazakstan. The Dnepr is a converted SS-18 ballistic missile approved by treaty for launching satellites and space probes. A Russian firm, ISC Kosmotras, will handle the payload integration and launch operations. In December of 2002, the company successfully lofted a structural test article of the Trailblazer aboard another Dnepr launcher.

Van Allen’s presentation described the mission and its objectives and showed the spacecraft undergoing integration and testing and featured dramatic video footage of the December launch.

Besides his work for TransOrbital, Dr. Van Allen is engaged in space work at Microcosm, Inc. and has worked on multiple robotic space missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

For more information on the Trailblazer, check out the TransOrbital website.