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America’s first attempt to return to the moon hit a major snag on Monday when Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s lunar lander developed problems with its propulsion system hours after liftoff.
The company said in a statement that the system failure had “resulted in a significant loss of propellant” and that it needed to assess “what alternative mission profiles are feasible at this time.”
Astrobotic is attempting to return to the moon more than 50 years after the Apollo mission, but with one big difference. It became the first commercial space company to land an aircraft on the moon.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance ahead of the launch, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said, “We hope that technology advances to the point where we can reach the moon’s surface affordably, routinely, regularly.” It took a long time,” he said. “When you said that, the stars aligned towards the moon.”
Thornton and his team made their first bet on the Peregrine Lunar Module, a small class of spacecraft developed within the 47,000 square foot facility. Equipped with electronics, propulsion and communications systems, Peregrine was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket at 2:18 a.m. ET Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The launch was successful, but seven hours after liftoff, a problem with the propulsion system prevented the spacecraft from pointing toward the sun, a critical feature for generating solar energy to power the lunar module. The company announced that it is no longer possible.
On Monday afternoon, Astrobotic shared the first images taken by Hayabusa in space, saying it was able to re-establish communication with the spacecraft and fully charge its battery. However, the company hinted that the loss of propellant made a moon landing less likely.
Astrobotic added that it will leverage Peregrine’s existing capabilities to “perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible.”
(1/4) We received our first image from Space Peregrine! The camera used is mounted on top of the payload deck, with the multi-layer insulation (MLI) visible in the foreground. pic.twitter.com/dUuu0Idz8K
— Astrobotic (@astrobotic) January 8, 2024
A successful landing by Hayabusa would be a major milestone in the civil space race that has spawned a $470 billion industry worldwide, and would elevate the even more audacious goal of human survival on the moon.
“To solve the problem, you need the infrastructure and the resources and it needs to start working,” Thornton said. “The more we unshackle ourselves from our dependence on Earth’s resources and travel into space, the more we can become true space explorers and, ultimately, space colonists.”
Although the early Apollo programs were driven by government agencies such as NASA, the rapid growth of private space companies has led to a proliferation of new missions resulting from public-private partnerships focused on scientific research and space exploration. Elon Musk’s SpaceX alone has partnered with NASA on eight crewed spaceflights to the International Space Station.
However, commercial success on the moon remains elusive. Japan’s iSpace’s attempt to land the first commercial lander on the moon failed earlier this year when its lunar lander, Hakuto-R, crashed after miscalculating its altitude.
The Hayabusa lander was expected to land on the moon on February 23rd.
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