Is it the little spaceship that could?
A private US lunar lander that’s been bleeding fuel since an explosion early in its journey is somehow continuing, taking selfies and running scientific instruments as it continues its journey into space.
Although Astrobotic, the company that built the Peregrine rover, has said a controlled landing on the Moon is no longer possible, it has not ruled out the possibility of a so-called “hard landing” or crash — a prospect that has caught space watchers off guard .
“Peregrine has now been operating in space for more than 4 days,” Astrobotic said in its latest update posted on X on Friday, adding that it remains “stable and operational.”
The rate of fuel loss steadily decreases as the pressure inside the tank drops, meaning the company has been able to extend the life of the spacecraft much longer than it originally thought possible.
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Meanwhile, the US, German and Mexican space agencies managed to use the scientific instruments they wanted to operate on the Moon.
“The measurements and functions of the science instruments provided by NASA on board will provide valuable experience, technical knowledge and science data to future CLPS lunar deliveries,” said Joel Kearns, NASA’s associate associate for exploration.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services is NASA’s experimental program under which the space agency paid Astrobotic more than $100 million to ship Peregrine’s hardware as part of a strategy to create a commercial lunar economy and reduce its own of overheads.
Astrobotic is the third private entity to fail a soft landing, following an Israeli nonprofit and a Japanese company.
“Shoot on goal”
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While it didn’t work this time, NASA officials have made clear their strategy of “more shots on goal” means more scoring opportunities, and the next attempt, by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, begins in February.
Astrobotic itself will get another chance in November with the Griffin lander that will carry NASA’s VIPER rover to the lunar south pole.
For now, the Pittsburgh-based company is holding firm on Peregrine’s destination, leaving enthusiasts to make their own calculations.
Amateur astronomer Tony Dunn used publicly available data provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to plot the spacecraft’s current path, posting a graphic on the social media platform X that shows it will collide with the Moon on January 23.
But “it’s really anyone’s guess as to what will actually happen because of the fuel leak,” which could easily drive it away, he told AFP.
Or, Astrobotic could purposely show Peregrine another way, like fly by the Moon and shoot for interplanetary space.
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While a hard lunar landing may satisfy some of Astrobotic’s customers, such as those who dump human ashes and DNA on the moon, it could anger others such as the Navajo Nation, which has called the payload a “desecration” of the celestial body.
“I think it would be a shame if they ended their failed mission by littering the surface of the Moon with debris,” Justin Walsh, a professor of art history, archeology and space studies at USC, told AFP, adding that humanity has left some 180 tons of material to the surface since the first Soviet impactor crashed in 1959.
Source: AFP