The first moon lander to launch from the US in half a century will not make it to the lunar surface due to a fuel leak, its operators have announced, adding that their goal was now to travel as far as possible before losing power.
Peregrine 1, which is also the first commercial space probe to attempt a soft landing on the moon, suffered a “critical loss of propellant” hours after lift-off on Monday due to an “anomaly” in the propulsion system, according to Astrobotic, the US company behind the project.
After initially fearing that the spacecraft would not be able to orient itself towards the sun to charge its batteries, the team at Astrobotic announced it had successfully completed an “improvised manoeuvre” and the solar array was working.
Peregrine was scheduled to land on the moon on 23 February, when it would have begun to gather data about the lunar surface to help research for planned future human missions.
Instruments on board include those that can measure radiation levels, surface and subsurface water ice, the magnetic field, and the extremely tenuous layer of gas called the exosphere.
Responding to reports of the lander’s failure, Nasa said it was working with Astrobotic to identify the root cause of the propulsion problem, adding: “Space is hard.”
The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 45%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The first moon lander to launch from the US in half a century will not make it to the lunar surface due to a fuel leak, its operators have announced, adding that their goal was now to travel as far as possible before losing power.
Peregrine 1, which is also the first commercial space probe to attempt a soft landing on the moon, suffered a “critical loss of propellant” hours after lift-off on Monday due to an “anomaly” in the propulsion system, according to Astrobotic, the US company behind the project.
After initially fearing that the spacecraft would not be able to orient itself towards the sun to charge its batteries, the team at Astrobotic announced it had successfully completed an “improvised manoeuvre” and the solar array was working.
Peregrine was scheduled to land on the moon on 23 February, when it would have begun to gather data about the lunar surface to help research for planned future human missions.
Instruments on board include those that can measure radiation levels, surface and subsurface water ice, the magnetic field, and the extremely tenuous layer of gas called the exosphere.
Responding to reports of the lander’s failure, Nasa said it was working with Astrobotic to identify the root cause of the propulsion problem, adding: “Space is hard.”
The original article contains 388 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 45%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!