The American space agency NASA shared a news about the Lunar Flashlight project. As the press service reported, there was a problem with the satellite’s engines. The miniature satellite was launched about a month ago on a mission to search for water ice on the Moon. The probe was also expected to run on new “green” fuel during its four-month voyage to the moon.

Although the small satellite was mostly functional and communicating with NASA’s long-range space communications network, the mission team found that three of its four engines were not operating efficiently. Based on ground testing, the team believes the lack of performance could be due to obstructions in the fuel lines that could limit fuel supply to the engines.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a probe to the Moon on December 11, 2022, with a Japanese lander and a United Arab Emirates-built lunar rover. NASA’s small satellite is designed to search for water ice at the moon’s south pole, which NASA hopes to land astronauts on in a few years.