NASA Peregrine 1: moon lander suffering from ‘critical loss of propellant’, abandons moon landing
NASA Peregrine 1: moon lander suffering from ‘critical loss of propellant’, abandons moon landing
US firm Astrobotic says it is assessing ‘alternative mission profiles’ after finding failure in propulsion system
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After lift-off on Monday, the Peregrine Mission One (PM1) – which carries a piece of technology developed by UK scientists – experienced an “anomaly” that would have prevented the lander from achieving a stable position pointing towards the sun, according to Astrobotic, the US firm behind the project.
It is the first mission to fly under Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, a scheme in which the space agency pays private companies to deliver scientific equipment to the moon.
Its instruments are intended to measure radiation levels, surface and subsurface water ice, the magnetic field, and the extremely tenuous layer of gas called the exosphere.
More controversially, the lander contains non-scientific payloads, including a physical coin “loaded with one bitcoin” and a Japanese “lunar dream capsule” that contains 185,872 messages from children from around the world.
Vulcan has spent roughly a decade in development to replace ULA’s workhorse Atlas V rocket and to rival the reusable Falcon 9 from Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the satellite launch market.
As well as the lunar lander, the mission is also delivering a memorial payload into space containing the remains and DNA of several people associated with the Star Trek television franchise, including the actors James Doohan, DeForest Kelley and Nichelle Nichols.
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American lunar capabilities have atrophied while India and China are speeding ahead. The last controlled American moon landing (crewed or uncrewed) was Apollo 17. In 1972.
And people believe that Artemis 3 will happen next year
Atrophied...? It's a private company that NASA helped fund to help develop their own, independent capabilities. The private sector is always less careful, this should not be surprising.
There's a whole different private American company launching their own attempt next month or something.
There's more lenses to look through asides the lens of nationalism.
Lol dude NASA has been landing on mars in that time, not sitting at home
It wasn't a NASA lander, it was an Astrobotic lander. NASA has been busy with Mars landings. The whole point of CLPS is to get cheaper missions by doing less micromanaging. We'll see how Intuitive Machines does next.
I don't think anyone even moderately informed has though a 2025 Artemis 3 landing is realistic for years at this point. It sounds like the official delay announcement is coming soon.
This isn't NASA, it's a private company completely unrelated in anyway to the Artemis projects success chances. NASA meanwhile, has a great track record for landing stuff on mars, which is much harder
That being said, no one who is actually following the Artemis project believes Artemis 3 will happen next year, we all know 2026 is the earliest it'll be at this point.
ETA: Annnddd it's official, Artemis 2 delayed to 2025, Artemis 3 delayed to 2026.