Japanese CubeSat That Was Aboard Artemis 1 is Already Having Issues

After many setbacks, Artemis 1 finally achieved liftoff on Wednesday. Not only was the Orion capsule carried by the SLS rocket, but 10 low-cost CubeSats as well. These are assigned to study the Earth, Sun, Moon, and a nearby asteroid, as mentioned in Gizmodo. However, one of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) CubeSat is experiencing issues.

The OMOTENASHI CubeSat

Several space agencies contributed to the CubeSats that were aboard the moon rocket. These include the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian space agency (ASI), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The other CubeSat released by JAXA was called EQUULEUS.

The OMOTENASHI’s orbiting module has a dosimeter, according to NASA, which will help with its mission to study the moon, alongside Lunar IceCube, LunaH-Map, and LunIR. All CubeSats will communicate with their ground controllers, depending on the different timeframes they have. EQUULEUS is operating normally.

OMOTENASHI, on the other hand, has been experiencing complications, as it has not completed sun acquisition. It’s having problems with communication stability, according to JAXA, but they are proceeding with their operations for stabilizing the altitude, securing the power, and establishing communication with the CubeSat.

The moon lander has a mass of 12.6kg, with a size of 6U. Its aim is to land on the moon’s surface and explore it. If it manages to land on the moon successfully, it will be the smallest lunar lander in humankind’s space history.

The slight malfunctions may have something to do with the several delays that the mission went through. NASA officials stated that they charged four CubeSats out of ten, when it was in the Vehicle Assembly Building. Although, they also said that one of the satellites may have its functions affected since it had a low state of charge.

The Other CubeSats

The Lunar IceCube was created by Morehead State University, the Busek Company, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. It is equipped with a Broadband InfraRed Compact High-Resolution Explorer Spectrometer, which will examine major minerals on the moon’s surface.

The NEA (Near Earth Asteroid) Scout was made by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, with a solar sail of 86 square meters. It will study a small asteroid nearby, called Asteroid 2020 GE. It is 18 meters in diameter, which the CubeSat will collect the data from.

The BioSentinel was developed by NASA Ames Research Center. It operates outside of Earth’s protective magnetosphere, which might cause it to be subjected to solar wind and cosmic rays. Its mission is to measure the radiation in the cislunar environment.

The LunIR CubeSat was funded by NASA, but built by Lockheed Martin. The CubeSat will conduct spectroscopy and thermography on the moon’s surface. It will also take many images of the moon, and then map it with an infrared instrument. It will then go on to do the same with the Earth and the Sun.

The ArgoMoon will take images of the ICPS upper stage, which is possible due to its two cameras. It also has an optical communications system, autonomous navigation, and nanotechnology demonstrations. More is mentioned in NASA Space Flight.