What Killed NASA's Lunar Trailblazer Probe?

Just a day after NASA launched its Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft on a multi-month, ultra-efficient journey to the Moon, it went dark. NASA couldn't communicate with it, despite having received earlier messages that all was well and it was proceeding on its journey. Now, a year later, we know why.

The solar panels were pointed in the wrong direction.

As every Kerbal Space Program player knows, launching spacecraft is hard, and doing it successfully even more so. Unfortunately, even organizations like NASA and satellite developer Lockheed Martin make mistakes, like the software bug that caused this spacecraft to die before it had even left Earth's orbit.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request submitted by NPR, we now know that a software glitch caused the solar panels to point 180 degrees away from the Sun, making them entirely useless for energy collection. As the satellite ran low on power ...