The New York Times reports that a spacecraft that “was headed to the surface of the moon has ended up back at Earth instead, burning up in the planet’s atmosphere on Thursday afternoon.” Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh “announced in a post on the social network X that it lost communication with its Peregrine moon lander at 3:50 p.m. Eastern time, which served as an indication that it entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific at around 4:04 p.m.” It was a sad end to a trip that “lasted 10 days and covered more than half a million miles, with the craft traveling past the orbit of the moon before swinging back toward Earth.” But the spacecraft “never got close to its landing destination on the near side of the moon.” The main payloads “on the spacecraft were from NASA, part of an effort to put experiments on the moon at a lower cost by using commercial companies.” Astrobotic’s launch “was the first in the program, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS.”
Full Story (New York Times – Subscription publication)
Tag: lunar
Astrobotic Announces Peregrine Reentry Plans
Aviation Week reports Astrobotic Technology said that it is “projecting its troubled Peregrine lunar lander will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean around 4 p.m. EST on Jan. 18, two days earlier than previous estimates.” Space News reports Astrobotic “said it had to perform a two-step process to put the spacecraft on that reentry trajectory. One involved a series of 23 short burns by the spacecraft’s main engines. Astrobotic first tested those main engines Jan. 13, confirming they worked. However, the company said at the time that, because of the oxidizer leak, the fuel-to-oxidizer ratio ‘is well outside of the normal operating range of the main engines making long controlled burns impossible.’” The company “said it also oriented the spacecraft so that the force from the leaking propellant would push the spacecraft towards the desired reentry zone over the South Pacific, ensuring that any debris that survives reentry will fall outside of populated regions.”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)
Following Propellant Leak, Engineers Look to Find New Mission for Peregrine
Reuters reports Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander “has ‘no chance’ of a soft landing on the moon after springing a propellant leak in the first few hours of its journey in space, the company said on Tuesday about the first such U.S. attempt in five decades. There was 40 hours of fuel left on the lander that will allow it to operate ‘as a spacecraft’ even as engineers determine what its new mission in orbit will be, the space robotics firm said.”
Full Story (Reuters)
Peregrine Lunar Lander Suffers “Critical” Propellant Loss
CNN reports Astrobotic Technology “said it is abandoning an attempt to put its Peregrine spacecraft on the moon less than 24 hours after the vehicle took flight” because the spacecraft “suffered ‘critical’ propellant loss.” As reported, “Just hours after launching from Florida toward the moon early Monday morning, the company announced the spacecraft was in jeopardy. The lunar lander, dubbed Peregrine, was unable to place itself in a position facing the sun, likely because of a propulsion issue, according to the company. The wayward orientation prevented the spacecraft from charging its batteries. The battery issue was later resolved, but Astrobotic was not able to correct the apparent issue with the Peregrine lander’s propulsion system.”
Full Story (CNN)
Pew Poll: Americans See Lunar, Mars Missions as Low Priorities for NASA
The Washington Post reports most Americans believe NASA’s top priority should be monitoring asteroids that could strike the Earth instead of returning astronauts to the Moon, according to a poll released Thursday. For respondents in the Pew Research Center survey, only 12 percent of “adults think returning astronauts to the surface of the moon should be NASA’s top priority.” A human landing on “Mars is even less popular: Only 11 percent said it should be the top priority.” By contrast, 60 percent “said monitoring asteroids should be the agency’s top priority; 50 percent said monitoring climate change should be NASA’s top priority.”
Full Story (Washington Post)
CAPSTONE Reaches Lunar Orbit
In what UPI describes as a “major win” for NASA, the CAPSTONE CubeSat probe “arrived in orbit around the moon Sunday night.” NASA “made the announcement Monday amid a flurry of test missions in recent months that set the stage for astronauts to return to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.” CAPSTONE “was disabled for several weeks after a faulty engine burn sent it careening into outer space on Sept. 8.”
Full Story (UPI)
NASA Selects Design Concepts for Lunar Nuclear Power Stations
SPACE reports that NASA “and the U.S. Department of Energy selected three design concept proposals that the government hopes could be ready for use on the moon by the end of the 2020s, to support the space agency’s Artemis program of lunar exploration.” NASA sees the $5 million contracts “as potentially useful for the exploration of Mars and other deeper-space destinations.” The selected teams “are led by Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX (a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy)” and are to “provide NASA critical information from industry that can lead to a joint development of a full flight-certified fission power system.”
Full Story (SPACE)