The Peregrine lander from Astrobotic, after failing to land on the Moon, is now heading back to Earth. There is a possibility that the spacecraft will catch fire during its re-entry into the atmosphere.
Astrobotic has been regularly updating the status of the Peregrine lander since the start of its journey to the Moon. The spacecraft was launched aboard the brand-new Vulcan rocket built by United Launch Alliance on January 8th.
The Peregrine lander is falling back to Earth.
Shortly after separating from the rocket, an explosion occurred in the spacecraft’s compartment, and it was unable to land softly on the Moon due to a fuel leak.
“The spacecraft is on its way back to Earth; it may catch fire during re-entry,” the Pittsburgh-based company posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
The Peregrine has been in space for over five days and is currently 390,000 km away from Earth.
In addition to scientific equipment, the spacecraft also carried cargo for Astrobotic’s private customers, including a can of sports drink, a physical Bitcoin, as well as human and animal ashes and DNA.
According to AFP, Astrobotic is the latest private entity to fail in a Moon landing attempt, following a nonprofit organization from Israel and a Japanese company.
The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) paid Astrobotic over $100 million to transport cargo as part of a testing program called the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). The overall goal is to establish a commercial lunar economy and reduce overall costs.
Although this attempt was unsuccessful, NASA officials have made it clear that the strategy is to conduct as many missions as possible. The next effort will come from Houston-based Intuitive Machines, scheduled for February.
Astrobotic itself will have another opportunity in November with the Griffin lander carrying NASA’s VIPER exploration rover to the Moon’s south pole.
