There is a challenge still unmet on the Moon: the landing of a private company. The Astrobotic company was going to try it this month. If everything had gone as planned, we would have seen something similar to the simulation seen in the opening photo: Astrobotic's Peregrine module landing on the Moon. But it could not be. AND We already know what Peregrine's final traffic will be.
Countries like the United States, Russia, China or India have reached the Moon. But always through state and public agencies. A year ago a Japanese company tried to land on the Moon, but its rocket crashed during the maneuver.
A few days ago Astrobotic launched the Peregrine into orbit, but a problem with the propulsion system caused the mission to fail. What is going to happen now with the lander and the experiments from 7 countries it carries?
The tragic end of Astrobotic's Peregrine module
Astrobotic has manufactured the Peregrine lander, which does not refer to religion, but to the fastest bird on Earth, the peregrine falcon. It has a size of 2.5 x 1.9 meters, and weighs 1,283 Kilos. It transports five NASA experiments, and 15 from different countries.
Most are scientific experiments, but there are some that are quite questionable:
Inside is a coin-shaped Bitcoin, as well as a plaque with a copy of the Genesis Block, the first Bitcoin block to be mined. Also 80,000 messages from children, and even ashes of deceased people, which will be deposited on the Moon by the company Elysium Space.
The Peregrine 1 mission was launched on January 9on the new United Launch Alliance rocket, Vulcan Centaur, which was also debuting.
The Vulcan Centaur worked perfectly, sending the Peregrine lander to the Moon. But within hours of launch, the propulsion module began to leak fuel, and could not deploy the solar panels.
This weekend Astrobotic has given a new report. Confirms that Peregrine is 383,000 kilometers from Earth, which means it has reached the orbit of the Moon. The problem is that the Moon is not there, but much further behind, as you can see in this image:
If everything had gone well, the Pilgrim would have been caught by the Moon's gravity, and after circling a few times, it would have landed.
What will happen now? As seen in the image above, when the module runs out of fuel, It will be attracted again by Earth's gravity, and will end up destroyed when it comes into contact with the atmosphere..
The first private mission that was going to land on the Moon has failed, but Astrobotic has collected very valuable data, which will help it on the second attempt. Luck!