NASA's lunar water-hunting spacecraft spotted 145,000 miles from Earth

NASA's water-hunting spacecraft Lunar Flashlight and Japan's HAKUTO-R Mission1 were spotted from Earth on their way to the moon. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona have shared images of the two spacecraft, which were acquired about 39 hours after launch, when they were 145,000 miles (235,000 kilometers) from Earth.

Both missions launched on Dec. 11, 2022, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Astronomers from the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Space4 Center, used a remote 0.5-meter (1.6-foot) telescope in Australia to track the spacecraft. They used data from the Horizons System at NASA-JPL to find their position in the sky.

In the above picture, the HAKUTO-R lunar lander appears as a large black dot, whereas the smaller Lunar Flashlight appears as a fuzzy grouping of gray pixels.

Coasting to the Moon! @NASA’s Lunar Flashlight was spotted by @UArizonaLPL astronomers—39 hours after launch and 145,000 mi from Earth! It may be tiny, but the briefcase-size satellite reflected enough sunlight to appear as a cluster of pixels in space: https://t.co/YeHhuACyVG pic.twitter.com/rrFBC5l0y5

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) December 27, 2022

NASA's Lunar Flashlight is a satellite the size of a briefcase that will use lasers emitting near-infrared light and an on-board spectrometer to map ice in the permanently shadowed areas near the Moon's south pole. It is expected to reach its science orbit around the Moon in April 2023.

The solar-powered small satellite will showcase several technological firsts, including being the first mission to use multiple colored lasers to seek out ice inside these dark regions on the Moon, which haven't seen sunlight in billions of years. It is also the first planetary CubeSat mission to make use of green propulsion, a propellant that is less hazardous and more secure than the usual hydrazine propellant used by spacecraft.