Peregrine Lander Leaking Propellant
Peregrine Lander Leaking Propellant
Astrobotic Says 'No Chance of a Soft Landing on the Moon'
A propellant leak has forced Astrobotic to drastically alter its goals for the Peregrine mission, which launched Monday aboard the new ULA Vulcan rocket.
"Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon."
Astrobotic news release.
The issue became apparent shortly after launch when mission controllers noticed the propulsion anomaly affecting the sun-pointing navigation system.
According to a company news release, an ongoing propellant leak is causing the spacecraft’s Attitude Control System (ACS) thrusters to operate well beyond their expected service life cycles to keep the lander from an uncontrollable tumble. The say that if the thrusters can continue to operate, it is believed that the spacecraft could continue in a stable sun pointing state for approximately 40 more hours, based on current fuel consumption.
Subsequently, Astrobotic announced that another issue arose after about 32 hours of operation. "Overnight, the team faced another spacecraft pointing issue, but continues to persevere. The spacecraft started to tilt away from the Sun and reduced its solar power generation. The team was able to update the control algorithm and fix this issue. The batteries are at full charge," they said in a news release.
"Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon. However, we do still have enough propellant to continue to operate the vehicle as a spacecraft. The team has updated its estimates, and we currently expect to run out of propellant in about 40 hours from now — an improvement from last night’s estimate. The team continues to work to find ways to extend Peregrine’s operational life. We are in a stable operating mode and are working payload and spacecraft tests and checkouts. We continue receiving valuable data and proving spaceflight operations for components and software relating to our next lunar lander mission, Griffin."
Peregrine is carrying multiple NASA science experiments, as well as other commercial payloads.