Peregrine mission abandons lunar landing attempt after suffering 'critical' loss of fuel

CNN
—

Astrobotic Technology, the company that developed the first lunar lander to be launched from the United States in five decades, said it is abandoning an attempt to put its Peregrine spacecraft on the moon less than 24 hours after launch.

The spacecraft suffered a “critical” loss of propellant due to a fuel leak, according to the company.

A few hours after the spacecraft blasted off from Florida toward the moon early Monday morning, Astrobotic announced that the mission was in danger. The lunar lander, called Peregrine, was unable to position itself facing the sun, likely due to a propulsion issue, according to Astrobotic. This misdirection prevented the spacecraft from charging its batteries.

The battery issue was later resolved, but Astrobotic was unable to correct the apparent problem with Peregrine's propulsion system.

In a statement issued late Monday evening, the company said the fuel leak caused the thrusts of the Peregrine spacecraft's attitude control system — which is designed to precisely align the 6-foot-tall, boxy lander while in space — had to ” “Works fine.” beyond expected service life cycles to prevent the lander from tumbling uncontrollably.

Astrobotic added that the propulsion devices will likely operate for an additional 40 hours at most.

“At this time, the goal is to bring Peregrine as close to lunar distance as possible before it loses the ability to maintain its sun-directed position and subsequently loses power,” according to the company.

This means that a potential moon landing, which was scheduled for February 23, is no longer on the table.

Astrobotic had already warned just after 1pm ET that a “propulsion system malfunction” was draining the car's fuel. But the company worked hours on Monday to try to fix the problem and evaluate options.

Sometime Monday afternoon, Astrobotic also shared the first image of the Peregrine lander in space. The photo showed that the car's outer insulation layers were wrinkled.

The defaced material was “the first visual evidence consistent with our telemetry data indicating an anomaly in the payment system,” the company said in a post on social media platform X at 4:12 pm ET on Monday.

The lunar lander, named Peregrine after the world's fastest bird, appears to have been a hit on the first leg of its journey after it lifted off at 2:18 a.m. ET aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket developed by Lockheed Martin and Boeing's joint venture United Launch. . alliance.

This was the first flight ever of a Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle from ULA designed to replace the aging rocket array.

Just after 3 a.m. ET, the company confirmed that Vulcan Centaur performed as expected, delivering the Peregrine lunar lander into translunar injection orbit. According to ULA. This involves a specific engine burn that propels the Peregrine lander onto a trajectory in Earth orbit that allows it to synchronize with the Moon about 384,400 kilometers (238,855 miles) away.

The Peregrine lander is then expected to fire up its thrusters, using up to three maneuvers to determine its trajectory.

In a statement, Astrobotic said Peregrine successfully began communicating with NASA's Deep Space Network, and activated its avionics systems, “thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all of which are up and running as expected.”

“After the successful activation of the propulsion systems, Peregrine has entered a safe operational state,” the company said.

However, then the Peregrine lander encountered an “anomaly” that left the rover pointed away from the sun and unable to charge its battery.

Mission controllers then “developed and executed an improvised maneuver to redirect the solar panels toward the Sun,” according to Astrobotic.

They achieved this goal.

“The team’s improvised maneuver successfully redirected the Peregrine solar array toward the sun. We are now charging the battery,” the company said in an update. to publish 12:34 PM ET.

However, Astrobotic said it must correct the underlying propulsion issue. The spacecraft would need to use its onboard thrusters — and have enough propellant — to make a soft landing on the Moon.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology developed Peregrine under a $108 million contract with NASA. The vehicle was designed from the beginning to be relatively cheap, with the goal of fulfilling NASA's vision of reducing the cost of placing a robotic lander on the Moon by requiring the private sector to compete for such contracts.

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told CNN on January 2 that he views this first launch as a test mission.

“It's really like a 50-50 shot on target approach – where it's really about the success of the industry, not one specific mission,” Thornton said.

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, issued a statement Monday, saying, “Every success and setback represents opportunities to learn and grow. We will use this lesson to advance our efforts to advance the science, exploration, and commercial development of the Moon.”

Thornton, who previously said that this Peregrine mission cost Astrobotic more money than it made, also commented to CNN about what it would mean for the company if this mission failed.

“It will certainly have some impact on our relationships and our ability to secure additional missions in the future,” Thornton said. “It certainly won't be the end of the business, but it will certainly be difficult.”

Abandoning the lunar landing attempt represents a major loss not only for Astrobotic, but also for NASA, other countries and institutions with payloads aboard the Peregrine lander.

The company will not be able to test the landing maneuver, which – in previous attempts to land on the moon by different countries and companies – has proven to be an extremely difficult step in the journey.

On board Peregrine are five scientific instruments from NASA and 15 other payloads from a variety of organizations and countries. Commercial payloads on the lander include memorabilia and even human remains that customers paid to send to the lunar surface.