It looks like the troubled Peregrine Lunar Module has come to an end.
Astrobotic lost contact with Peregrine on Thursday, January 18, at approximately 3:50 p.m. (2050 GMT), the Pittsburgh-based company announced via X (formerly known as Twitter). did.
“This indicates that the vehicle completed a controlled reentry over the open ocean of the South Pacific at 4:04 p.m. ET, but we are awaiting independent confirmation from a government agency,” the company said. Stated. I wrote it in an update It was posted on the social media site around 8:00 pm ET on Thursday (1:00 am on Friday, January 19, Japan time).
We’ll learn more on Friday, when Astrobotic hosts a video conference about Peregrine’s mission and its fate. You can watch the event here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA, beginning at 1:00 PM ET (18:00 GMT).or directly via space agency.
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Peregrine was launched on January 8 on the debut flight of United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Although the Vulcan Centaur did its job well, Peregrine suffered from a serious anomaly shortly after deploying from the rocket’s upper stage.
The problem was a fuel leak, and Astrobotic said a stuck valve may have caused the oxidizer tank to burst. However, this is a provisional diagnosis. A firmer view may come at Friday’s press conference.
This leak ended the possibility of Peregrine’s historic trip to the moon. No commercial spacecraft has ever successfully landed on the moon. However, the spacecraft remained functional, powered up all 10 energy-requiring payloads, and operated for more than 10 days on the final frontier. (Peregrine also carried ten of his other passive payloads, including a commemorative capsule containing human remains provided by Celestis and Elysium Space.)
Five of Peregrine’s payloads were NASA science instruments and were installed through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program (CLPS).
The Peregrine mission was the first CLPS effort to leave Earth, but another mission is about to launch. The Nova-C lander, built by Houston company Intuitive Machines, is scheduled to launch toward the moon next month aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.