Ground control teams were unable to point the unmanned spacecraft correctly toward the Sun; It is believed to be a propulsion anomaly.
In mid-June of last year, the Beehive Mission (Misión Colmena) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) was selected to place five nano-robots on the surface of the Moon and to become the first of a series of projects aimed at the Earth’s natural satellite, and even asteroids, to develop a niche technology.
However, this historic private mission whose objective is to reach the lunar soil presented several technical problems on Monday, January 8th, that raised fears of failure, a blow to US hopes of bringing its first robot in five decades to the surface of the natural satellite.
The Vulcan Centaur rocket, from United Launch Alliance (ULA), took off on its maiden voyage from the Cape Canaveral space station, in the state of Florida (southeast), at 02:18 local time (07:18 GMT), transporting the Peregrine lunar module. the American manufacturer Astrobotic, which achieved successful separation one hour after launch.
But ground control teams were unable to point the unmanned spacecraft correctly toward the Sun, an action necessary for its solar panels to achieve maximum power generation for Peregrine’s systems.
“The team believes that the possible cause of the unstable pointing towards the Sun is a propulsion anomaly that, if proven, threatens the spacecraft’s ability to make a soft landing on the Moon,” Astrobotic said on its X social network account.
The company added that Peregrine is currently in an expected communications outage, and would provide more information once contact is reestablished.
Peregrine must reach lunar orbit and remain there for several weeks before landing in a mid-latitude region called Sinus Viscositatis, or Bay of Stickiness, on February 23.
So far, only a handful of national space agencies have managed to perform a soft landing on Earth’s natural satellite: the Soviet Union was the first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which remains the only country to have landed humans on Moon.
China has successfully touched the surface three times over the past decade, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt last year.
The United States is turning to the private sector in an effort to stimulate a broader lunar economy and send its own spacecraft at low cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The US space agency NASA paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the mission, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, aims to launch its rocket in February and land it near the South Pole of the moon.
TYT Newsroom
