Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is seen during preparations for launch near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
United Launch Alliance
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s inaugural lunar mission suffered a malfunction shortly after launch, and the company is canceling the landing attempt.
It would have been the first American moon landing in more than 50 years.
Astrobotic said late Monday that the goal of its Peregrine lunar lander is now to get “as close to lunar range as possible” before the spacecraft begins to spin and lose power. The company suspects the malfunction was a failure within the spacecraft’s propulsion system, causing a leak that is rapidly draining fuel from the vehicle.
The company had aimed to make a lunar landing attempt on February 23, but in light of the propulsion issue it has since been “maximizing the science and data we can capture,” the company said in a post on the networking platform. social
Astrobotic’s Peregrine carries 20 payloads for government and commercial customers, five of which are for NASA under a $108 million contract.
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Peregrine was successfully deployed following launch on the maiden flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket early Monday morning, which made its long-awaited debut from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.
Hours after separating from the rocket, Astrobotic announced that it was receiving data from the lander and that many of its systems were working as expected. However, after activating its propulsion system, Peregrine suffered a problem and began to fall.
The new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41d at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Jan. 8, 2024, for its maiden voyage, carrying the Peregrine lunar landing by Astrobotic.
Gregg Newton | AFP | fake images
Astrobotic spent the next few hours improvising and was able to get the spacecraft’s solar panels pointed toward the sun to charge Peregrine’s battery. But the propellant leak has since meant that Peregrine only has enough fuel to remain stable until Thursday.
“We are using Peregrine’s existing power to perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible,” Astrobotic said.
While Peregrine Mission One won’t be the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, both the company and NASA have subsequent attempts lined up. Astrobotic’s maiden flight is just the first of six lunar lander launches from three different American companies scheduled for this year alone.
The push falls under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to deliver science and cargo to the Moon with increasing regularity in support of the agency’s Artemis crew program.
Astrobotic already has a second lunar mission funded, and the company says it has secured more than $450 million in government and commercial contracts so far.
“We are grateful for the outpouring of support we are receiving, from social media messages to phone calls and help. This is what makes the space industry so special, that we come together in the face of adversity,” Astrobotic wrote in a statement.
