Peregrine One Now Expected to Reenter Earth's Atmosphere
Peregrine One Now Expected to Reenter Earth's Atmosphere
Spacecraft Continues to Leak Propellant
The Peregrine One mission will have a much different ending that had originally been planned. The spacecraft continues to leak propellant, and is now expected to burn up as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere.
"This mission has already taught us so much and has given me great confidence that our next mission to the Moon will achieve a soft landing.”
John Thornton, Astrobotic
According to the most recent update posted Sunday, since the Peregrine lunar lander’s anomaly occurred 6 days ago, Astrobotic has been evaluating how best to safely end the spacecraft’s mission to protect satellites in Earth orbit as well as ensure it does not create debris in cislunar space.
Working with NASA, the company received input from the space community and the U.S. Government on the most safe and responsible course of action to end Peregrine’s mission. The recommendation it has received is to let the spacecraft burn up during re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere. Since this is a commercial mission, the final decision of Peregrine’s final flight path is in our hands. Ultimately, the desire to extend Peregrine’s life, operate payloads, and learn more about the spacecraft must be balanced with the risk that the damaged spacecraft could cause a problem in cislunar space, the company said. As such, the decision has been made to maintain the current spacecraft’s trajectory to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
Despite the propulsion system issue, the Astrobotic Mission Team has worked to stabilize the vehicle, turn on all active payloads, and enable the collection of payload data. The spacecraft has been operating in space for 6 days and 16 hours, and Peregrine continues to leak propellant, but now at a very slow rate. Saturday afternoon, we test fired one of the main engines for the first time. A 200 millisecond burn was achieved, and the data collected indicated Peregrine could have main engine propulsive capability. However, due to the anomaly, the fuel to oxidizer ratio is well outside of the normal operating range of the main engines, making long controlled burns impossible. The team projects that the spacecraft has enough remaining propellant to maintain sun pointing and perform small maneuvers.
Astrobotic designed and built hardware, avionics, software, and system architectures that have all performed as expected in space. All payloads designed to power on and communicate did so, and even achieved science objectives. While the company believes it is possible for the spacecraft to operate for several more weeks and could potentially have raised the orbit to miss the Earth, it must take into consideration the anomalous state of the propulsion system and utilize the vehicle’s onboard capability to end the mission responsibly and safely.
Peregrine will soon return to Earth’s atmosphere. The vehicle is now about 234,000 miles away. Astrobotic continues to work with NASA to continue updating and evaluating the controlled reentry path of Peregrine. The company does not believe Peregrine’s re-entry poses safety risks, and the spacecraft will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The team is validating this through analyses in collaboration with the U.S. Government, and will continue to operate the spacecraft and provide status updates through the end of the mission.
“I am so proud of what our team has accomplished with this mission. It is a great honor to witness firsthand the heroic efforts of our mission control team overcoming enormous challenges to recover and operate the spacecraft after Monday’s propulsion anomaly," said Astrobotic CEO, John Thornton. "I look forward to sharing these, and more remarkable stories, after the mission concludes on January 18. This mission has already taught us so much and has given me great confidence that our next mission to the Moon will achieve a soft landing.”