First private American moon landing in danger: “critical fuel loss”

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The mission is in danger! A private rocket took off on Monday. Your destination is the moon. It would be the first unmanned American moon landing since the Apollo mission more than fifty years ago. But according to Fox News, the rocket is currently losing too much fuel.

The rocket is of the Vulcan Centaur type from the manufacturer ULA with the Peregrine lander. The capsule, from Pittsburgh company Astrobiotic, is expected to land in an area called Sinus Viscositatis (Bay of Stickiness). The Peregrine Mission 1 allowed private individuals to purchase space to transport materials to the moon. The lander is 1.9 meters high and has a diameter of 2.5 meters.

“The Astrobotic-built electronic systems, including the primary command and data processing unit and the thermal, propulsion and power controllers, were all enabled and functioning as expected,” the company said Monday. “Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred that prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable alignment with the Sun,” the report said. In other words, the rocket doesn’t produce as much energy as it could. It is actually equipped with solar panels.

The reason for the anomaly is “a fault in the propulsion system,” Astrobotic said. “The fault appears to cause a critical loss of fuel in the propulsion system.” The researchers are currently working hard to get the situation back under control. But it’s possible the entire mission is doomed to failure.

The Japanese missile failed to land

In April 2023, a Japanese company failed a similar mission, with the company Ispace citing an incorrect altitude calculation of the lander during the landing attempt.

If successful, it would have been the world’s first private moon landing; now follows the second attempt by a company. Private companies have wanted to land on the moon and undertake other space projects for years, including billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

As with the ISS space station, the US space agency NASA is working increasingly closely with commercial providers on lunar projects, as this has proven to be an efficient and ultimately cost-saving approach. Conversely, the business model of private companies has often been dependent on government customers to date.

NASA wants to prepare its own expeditions to the moon with various devices along the way. During the mission, she wants to investigate, among other things, the exosphere of the moon. In addition, the thermal properties and hydrogen content of the material on the lunar surface (regolith) will be investigated.

“Artemis 3” planned

As part of the Artemis program, NASA wants to orbit the moon with three men and one woman at the end of 2024 during the ten-day Artemis 2 mission. In 2025, astronauts will land on the moon again on Artemis 3 – at least according to the current plan – after more than half a century, including a woman and a non-white for the first time. The long-term goal of ‘Artemis’ is to establish a permanent lunar base as a base for missions to Mars.

In addition to the Peregrin mission, NASA plans further collaborations as part of its CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative to deliver material to the moon. She places a kind of delivery order with a company like Astrobotic. According to the company, Peregrine has onboard deliveries from governments, corporations, universities and NASA from seven different countries.

In any case, a shipment from private partners in Peregrine is a thorn in the side of a number of indigenous peoples in the US: the ashes of humans and animals would end up on the moon as a special final resting place through the mission. According to US media reports, the president of the Navajo Nation in the state of Arizona, Buu Nygren, wrote a letter of complaint to NASA: The mission was to desecrate the moon, which is considered sacred in their culture, they said.

University of Bern is attracted by the moon

The University of Bern also wants to bring an instrument to the moon in 2027 with a so-called ‘Commercial Lunar Payload Service’. A highly sensitive Berner laser will be used for chemical examination of moon rocks.

According to the University of Bern, the instrument called Lims (Laser Ablation Ionization Mass Spectrometer) will land in the moon’s southern polar region. According to researchers, this region is particularly interesting because it contains certain elements whose isotopes make it possible to determine the age of the material. (SDA/jwg)

Source: Blick