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After flying hundreds of thousands of kilometers in space and struggling with a propellant problem that thwarted its plans, the Peregrine lunar lander likely met its violent end.
The spacecraft was expected to complete its 10-day journey around 4pm on Thursday, crashing into Earth’s thick atmosphere in a remote region of the South Pacific Ocean east of Australia.
Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company that developed the Peregrine lander under a contract with NASA, confirmed the spacecraft’s death and said contact with the vehicle was lost minutes before its scheduled reentry time, “indicating that the vehicle completed its controlled reentry into open water in the South Pacific.”
But the company added in a social media post: “We are awaiting independent confirmation from government agencies.”
NASA and Astrobotic officials are expected to speak publicly about the mission at a news briefing Friday at 1 p.m.
The failed mission was a setback for Astrobotic and NASA, whose overall goal was to create a commercially developed, relatively inexpensive lunar lander capable of completing robotic missions to the moon as the space agency works to achieve a human lunar landing later this decade.
Critical glitches after launch
The Peregrine lander was launched Jan. 8 atop the Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The launch went off without a hitch, delivering the Peregrine lander safely into Earth orbit en route to the moon. If the spacecraft managed to reach the lunar surface, it would be the first US mission to make a soft landing on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
However, hours before its solo flight, the Peregrine lander encountered critical setbacks. Astrobotic confirmed that the spacecraft had experienced a serious problem with its onboard propulsion systems and was leaking fuel, depriving the lander of enough gas to make a soft landing on the moon.
Astrobotics then changed course. The company oriented the spacecraft to operate more like a satellite, testing onboard scientific instruments and other systems as it flew thousands of kilometers through space.
Ultimately, Astrobotic decided that it would destroy the vehicle by crashing it into the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds.
What does Peregrine’s failure mean?
The loss of the Peregrine lander was a blow to Astrobotic and NASA.
An agreement signed between the two organizations made the mission possible, with NASA donating more than $108 million to assist Astrobotic with its development efforts and fly five payloads. That price tag represents an increase of about 36% from the original contract value, with the deal being renegotiated due to pandemic-related supply chain issues, according to Joel Kearns, deputy administrator for exploration in NASA’s science mission directorate.
The US space agency does not see the Peregrine spacecraft as the only option for conducting robotic research on the moon. NASA also has partnerships with three other companies developing robotic Moon landers, including Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which could launch its first mission in mid-February.
NASA, through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, designed its Moon landing contracts as “fixed-price” agreements; This means the space agency gives a single lump sum of money to a company rather than continuing to pay it when glitches arise throughout the development process.
“This is one of many relatively inexpensive missions that will be sent to the lunar surface to break the paradigm to reach a new price point,” Thornton told CNN earlier this month.
The deal was also structured to give the companies full ownership of their vehicles, making NASA just one of many customers flying cargo on the landers.
Testing site for commercial lunar landers
A dedicated lunar lander has never safely reached the lunar surface; but other companies have tried it. In 2019, a spacecraft built by the Israel-based company SpaceIL crashed into the moon during a landing attempt. And again in 2023, the Japan-based company Ispace lost control of its lander as it headed towards the surface of the moon.
SpaceIL, Ispace and Astrobotic have their roots in the same competition: the Google Lunar X Prize, which ran from 2007 to 2018 and offered a grand prize of $20 million to a company that could reach the moon. However, Prize X did not result in a winner as neither team started by the deadline.
Whether a commercially developed lunar rover can reach the surface of the Moon remains to be seen, and perhaps a more interesting question is whether lunar missions will offer a financially sustainable business model for these companies.
Astrobotic’s revenue for the Peregrine mission was driven by partnerships that included money from NASA and other government space agencies, as well as space cemetery companies that sent human remains to the Moon, along with packaged trinkets, plaques, bitcoin and other memorabilia for customers . .
Astrobotic’s Thornton admitted to reporters that the Peregrine mission cost his company more money than it made. But the failure won’t mean the end of Astrobotic, he told CNN.
“This will certainly have an impact on our relationships and our ability to take on additional roles in the future,” Thornton said on Jan. 2. “This certainly won’t be the end of it, but it will certainly be challenging.
“We’re on a high-risk space enterprise, and that’s the nature of space business.”
Astrobotic already has a contract to fly another robotic Moon landing mission for NASA later this year. This lander, called Griffin and a larger model than Peregrine, will aim to place a rover near the moon’s south pole.
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