US 1st Private Moon Lander Mission Fails

An historic commercial US mission to the Moon will fail after suffering a critical loss of fuel, organizers admitted Tuesday, ending for the time being America’s hopes of placing its...

Ruby Thakur
January 11, 2024
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An historic commercial US mission to the Moon will fail after suffering a critical loss of fuel, organizers admitted Tuesday, ending for the time being America’s hopes of placing its first spacecraft on the lunar surface since the Apollo era. A mission to put the first commercial craft on the moon appears to be in jeopardy after the spacecraft suffered a “critical loss” of fuel in a major blow to the United States’s hopes of placing its first robot on the lunar surface in five decades.

US 1^st Private Moon Lander Mission Fails

Why In News

An historic commercial US mission to the Moon will fail after suffering a critical loss of fuel, organizers admitted Tuesday, ending for the time being America’s hopes of placing its first spacecraft on the lunar surface since the Apollo era.

A mission to put the first commercial craft on the moon appears to be in jeopardy after the spacecraft suffered a “critical loss” of fuel in a major blow to the United States’s hopes of placing its first robot on the lunar surface in five decades.

Peregrine-1

Vulcan – a United Launch Alliance (ULA) rocket carrying the robotic lunar lander Peregrine, built by space robotics firm Astrobotic Technology – was launched by private firm Astrobotic, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, marking the first American lunar mission in 51 years.
Scheduled to land on February 23, the mission, conducted under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, aims to study the Moon’s surface environment in preparation for upcoming human missions.

But a few hours later, Astrobotic began reporting malfunctions, starting with an inability to orient Peregrine’s solar panel towards the Sun and keep its battery topped up, owing to a propulsion glitch that also damaged the spacecraft’s exterior.
The company said it had “no chance of soft landing” on the Moon.
Peregrine has about 40 hours of fuel remaining and Astrobotic said it planned to operate the spacecraft until it ran out of propellant.

NASA had paid the company more than $100 million to ship scientific hardware to a mid-latitude region of the Moon to answer questions about the surface composition and radiation in the surrounding environment, as it prepares to send astronauts back to Earth’s nearest neighbor later this decade.

In addition to its scientific instruments, Peregrine is carrying more colorful cargo on behalf of its own private clients. These include a physical Bitcoin and cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke and a dog.

Commercial Space Race

Mission is part of an accelerating space race among private companies, and if it is eventually able to reach the moon, it would be the first-ever lunar landing by a private company.
It would also be the first US landing on the moon in more than half a century – since the final Apollo landing in 1972.

It is the latest private company to have tried and failed to achieve a soft lunar landing.
Israel’s Beresheet lander, the first attempt by a non-government entity, was destroyed on impact with the Moon in April 2019, while Japan’s private Hakuto mission, operated by iSpace, crashed in April 2023.

For now, the feat has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.
China has successfully landed three times since 2013, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt, last year.
The next commercial attempt will be by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which is launching in February, bound for the Moon’s south pole.

The United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and cut costs, but Astrobotic’s failure could increase scrutiny about the strategy.
Astrobotic however said it was continuing to receive valuable data to prepare for its next contracted mission, sending the Griffin lander transporting a NASA rover to the lunar south pole, later this year.

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Ruby Thakur

General Studies Lecturer SSBCrackExams, BSc In PCM, Trained Students For State Services Exams. Expertise in Geography ,Polity & Current Affairs. Love Travelling.