A U.S. lunar lander that successfully launched from Florida on Monday in hopes of becoming the first American craft to touch down on the moon in more than 50 years has suffered an "anomaly" during flight, its maker says.
Astrobotic Technology says its Peregrine Lunar Lander began the day lifting off on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. before separating approximately 310 miles above Earth about 50 minutes later.
"Astrobotic-built avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected," the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company said. "After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state."
"Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation," according to the company. Astrobotic says the lander is designed to have an onboard solar panel facing the sun for "maximum power generation" while traveling in orbit.
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"The team believes that the likely cause of the unstable sun-pointing is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven true, threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the moon," it added. "As the team fights to troubleshoot the issue, the spacecraft battery is reaching operationally low levels. Just before entering a known period of communication outage, the team developed and executed an improvised maneuver to reorient the solar panels toward the sun."
NASA has paid Astrobotic $108 million to carry five scientific instruments to the moon, according to Sky News.
"The NASA instruments aboard Peregrine will help NASA prepare for the Artemis program’s missions to enable a sustained human presence on the Moon," Astrobotic said in a statement.
The Peregrine lander is also carrying remains of several "Star Trek" cast members and DNA of President John F. Kennedy, Sky News reports.
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Prior to the announcement of the "anomaly," Astrobotic said the Peregrine craft would attempt a landing on the moon on Feb. 23.
"Peregrine could become the first commercial lander, and first American lander in over 50 years, to land on the moon," it said.
The last U.S. mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in 1972.
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Astrobotic also said Monday that the launch was the "maiden flight" of the Vulcan rocket, developed by the Lockheed-Boeing joint venture United Launch Alliance.
