by Update 1 pm ET: Astrobotic Yes released the fourth update on the anomaly that the Falcon moon landing is suffering and it seems that the mission will not go as planned after all.
“Unfortunately, the failure within the drive system appears to have caused a critical loss of drive,” the company wrote. “The team is working to try to stabilize this loss, but given the situation, we have prioritized maximizing the science and data we can capture. We are currently assessing what the mission profiles alternatives that may be possible at this time.”
Astrobotic’s private lunar lander has encountered an anomaly on its way to the moon.
The Astrobotic Hawk lunar lander launched into an elliptical orbit in the early hours of today atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket built by the United Launch Alliance (ULA). The mission is the maiden voyage of ULA’s new launch vehicle, and the Falcon has the potential to be the first private mission ever to touch down safely on the lunar surface.
However, the lander suffered an anomaly just hours on the trip that could threaten its entire lunar landing mission, according to the Astrobotic Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based. He was expected to land on the moon on February 23.
Related: A private US lunar lander Vulcan rocket launches the first human remains
“After a successful propulsion system activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state. Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable solar orientation,” the company wrote in a statement released seven hours after 2:18 a.m. of the mission. EST (0718 GMT) liftoff from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. “The team is responding in real time as the situation develops and will provide updates as more data is received and analyzed.”
In the second update, Astrobotic reported that it could be caused by a drive issue.
“The team believes that the likely cause of the unstable sunset is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven to be true, jeopardizes the spacecraft’s ability to make a soft landing on the Moon,” the company wrote on XTwitter before.
There is a number of commercial and scientific payloads on board the Accessory Hawk. NASA contracted Astrobotic to deliver five science experiments designed and overseen by the agency; some will study the surface, atmosphere and radiation environment of the moon, and the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) experiment is set to install a system of mirrors and lasers on the surface of the moon and to measure very precise distances, and will act as a marker Peregrine’s permanent positions on the moon.
Mexico has five tiny autonomous robots on the Falcon alongside a small Nano Lunar Rover built by students at Carnegie Mellon University. A piece of Mt. Everest on board the flight, and space memorial companies Celestis and Elysium Space are trying to place human DNA and remains on the lunar surface from the mission’s “participants”, whose remains will be placed permanently on the lunar surface after Peregrine’s landing. .
There are also some commercial payloads on board, including lunar Bitcoin, an archive of miniaturized books and texts from the Arch Mission Foundation, and the “MoonBox” from the logistics and shipping company DHL containing containers and messages from 100,000 people around the world.
RELATED STORIES:
— NASA responds to Navajo Nation request to delay private mission to put human remains on moon
— For an Astrobotic trip, big risk (and bigger reward) on the private launch of Peregrine’s moon landing on January 8
— The launch of the 1st Vulcan Centaur rocket looks amazing in these photos and videos
All of those payloads now hang in the balance, however, unless the Constellation can cure the Hawks’ current anomaly. Peregrine’s battery life is a major concern, the company said. The spacecraft must point its solar arrays at the sun to generate power for its systems.
“As the team fights to troubleshoot the issue, the spacecraft battery is reaching low operational levels,” Astrobotic write. “Just before entering a known period of communication blackout, the crew developed and executed an improvised maneuver to redirect the solar panels toward the Sun. Shortly after this maneuver, the spacecraft entered for an expected period communication losses.”
Hawk has already done what is known as a phased loop around Earth to make course corrections and put itself on a path to enter a high elliptical lunar orbit. If it reaches the moon, it will gradually lower its orbit to about 62 miles (100 kilometers) before beginning its descent to the south pole region of the moon’s surface on February 23.
Meanwhile, ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket appears to have performed beautifully on its first flight. Meanwhile, Astrobotic is giving an update on its efforts to solve the discovery of the Pink moon on X.
