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The landing module, built by private space startup Astrobotic, was supposed to mark the return of the United States to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, since the Apollo landings.
The mission successfully launched on January 8 on United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Peregrine initially separated from the rocket's second stage without incident and was operating within specifications, but then instead of pointing its solar panel at the Sun, the module began to drift away from its target, suffering a temporary loss of communications.
The first photo taken by Peregrine in space
Even though engineers managed to orient Peregrine towards the Sun, Astrobotic's latest updates reported a “critical” loss of fuel and a threat to the mission's landing on the Moon. Depending on the level of losses, this may indicate that the module is being transferred to an alternative orbital trajectory instead of attempting to land or the mission is being canceled altogether due to the inability to control its course or position.
The mission would carry NASA scientific equipment to the Moon as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, which allows the agency to pay private companies to transport their equipment into space. Astrobotic was paid $108 million, a fraction of the $25.8 billion NASA spent on the pioneering Apollo mission to transport five payloads to the Moon to detect water ice and measure radiation levels. Experiments with water, in particular, are important for the Artemis program, which aims to definitively establish a long-term human presence on the Moon.
Other Peregrine payloads include a Ukrainian flag and map of Ukraine donated by Spacebit founder Pavel Tanasyuk, works of art, a physical Bitcoin token, a Japanese time capsule containing 185,872 messages from children around the world, and cremated ashes of people (including celebrities such as Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke), which the Navajo Nation actively opposed.
Launch of Vulcan Centaur
The launch of Peregrine marked the first flight for ULA's Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle (a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin), which is slated to replace the company's older Altas V and Delta IV designs. The new rocket uses US-made engines, replacing the Russian ones that powered the Atlas V.
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