US lunar lander anomaly could prevent it from soft landing on moon
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Hours after a Pittsburgh company launched a lunar lander, they announced an “anomaly” occurred.
Astrobotic Technology’s lunar lander, known as Peregrine, lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida overnight and headed into space aboard a United Launch Alliance “Vulcan” rocket. It’s the first time in 50 years the United States is headed back to the moon.
In a release just after 9:30 a.m. Monday, Astrobotic said the rocket successfully separated from Peregrine, started receiving telemetry from the NASA Deep Space Network, and the avionics systems “performed as expected.” They say Peregrine entered a safe operational state once propulsion systems activated.
But, after that, Astrobotic says “an anomaly then occurred,” preventing the company from “achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation.”
In an update issued around 11 a.m. on X, formerly Twitter, Astrobotic says its team thinks the issue is a “propulsion anomaly” that could threaten the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the moon. Additionally, Peregrine’s battery is reaching “operationally low levels.”
Currently, the spacecraft is in an expected period of communication loss. Just before the outage, Astrobotic’s team reportedly “executed an improvised maneuver to reorient the solar panels toward the Sun.”
Astrobotic plans provide more information when Peregrine comes into view again.
https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/pittsburgh-built-lunar-lander-suffers-anomaly-after-separating-rocket/7YG2WDSHOZCPVPIWGXCBKWQSVQ/