NASA’s Lunar Flashlight SmallSat readies for launch

When NASA’s Lunar Flashlight launches no earlier than Nov. 30, the tiny satellite will begin a three-month journey, with mission navigators guiding the spacecraft far past the moon. It will then be slowly pulled back by gravity from Earth and the sun before settling into a wide science-gathering orbit to hunt for surface water ice inside dark regions on the moon that haven’t seen sunlight in billions of years.