Astrobotic’s Peregrine-1 spacecraft has “no chance” of landing on the moon after it sprang a propellant leak, the company says.
The problem occurred in the first few hours of the lunar lander’s journey into space.
The Pittsburgh-based firm added that there is enough fuel left in the lander to allow it to operate “as a spacecraft” while engineers decide what its new mission in orbit will be.
The company said it had managed to orient the land towards the sun, so the solar panel could collect sunlight and charge its battery, while a team assessed the status of what was said to be “a failure in the propulsion system”.
Peregrine Mission 1 took off in Florida on a new Vulcan rocket at 7.18am UK time on Monday.
It was intended to be the first US spacecraft to land on the moon’s surface since Apollo 17 in 1972 and appeared to lift off into space as planned.
The problems with the Peregrine Mission-1 lander were reported around seven hours after Monday’s pre-dawn lift-off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
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The company said the propulsion system problem “threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the moon”.
Astrobotic said a photo from a lander-mounted camera, showed a “disturbance” in a section of thermal insulation – which aligned with what was so far known of the problem.
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Source : Sky News
