NASA's first lunar lander launch (the NASA Peregrine Mission 1) since the Apollo era continues to surprise despite a scare that took place soon after its launch and led to engineers confirming that a soft landing is impossible. Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander lifted off on the United Launch Alliance's (ULA) brand new Vulcan rocket earlier this month, making it the U.S.'s first private commercial attempt to land a spacecraft full of payload on the Moon.
Now, Astrobotic's engineers believe that the Peregrine might have 52 hours of propellant remaining - an update that comes 17 hours after Astrobotic's previous one that had estimated 48 hours of fuel left for the lunar journey.
Astrobotic Gains Valuable Experience On Its Maiden Lunar Launch After Pergerine's Propellant System Failure
Lunar and other deep space planetary exploration landers must account for multiple factors when undertaking a journey. For missions to the Moon, since the distance is considerably less than other planets, such as Mars, landers can be sent directly to the Moon without needing additional propulsion systems on board.
This is the case for Peregrine as well since it relies on onboard engines to orient itself with the Moon and land. Landing on the Moon is tricky since spacecraft cannot use parachutes to slow down their initial rate of descent. As a result, the engines called the main engines, fire up to slow down the spacecraft. Peregrine has five main engines, but these are not the only ones it uses for maneuvering during a lunar journey.
Astrobtic's lander also has a complement of 12 attitude control systems that play an equally important role in a landing. While the main engines are responsible for slowing down the spacecraft's rate of descent, the ACS engines are necessary to ensure that it can orient itself to the Moon, without which a correct landing becomes dangerous.
Astrobotic's latest update for the Peregrine mission was shared moments back. It outlined that the lander now has 52 hours of fuel remaining. Since the propulsion system anomaly occurred within hours of its launch, Peregrine has relied on its attitude control engines to point itself toward the Sun. However, since its fuel has been leaking, the spacecraft cannot make a 'soft' landing on the Moon, according to the company.
Whether it will attempt a hard landing is also speculative since 52 hours of remaining mission time are insufficient to meet Peregrine's original trajectory. To create velocity for a lunar approach, Peregrine will first fly around Earth and then use the resulting momentum to catch up with the Moon, descend itself and then attempt a landing.
This process was expected to finish in late February, according to estimates provided by Astrobotic at the time of launch. Since then, several payloads on the lander have successfully powered up and demonstrated an ability to operate in space.
Crucially for Peregrine, Astrobotic's engineers believe that the vehicle could survive for much longer than initially expected. The rate of propellant leak has slowed down, and if the lander can maintain power, then it could travel for quite a while. Astrobotic is also unsure why the propellant leak has slowed down faster than its estimates led it to believe initially, and as of yesterday, the spacecraft had covered 94% of its distance between the Moon and Earth.
Updated at 14:17 ET with the proper title of NASA's Peregrine mission in the first paragraph. An earlier version of the title included a typographical error which is regretted.
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
