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Month: January 2024

Astrobotic’s Peregrine team keeps stretching mission, powers up payloads

Astrobotic’s Peregrine team keeps stretching mission, powers up payloads

Despite a fuel leak that took a moon landing off the board for commercial company Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander, teams have continued to stretch the spacecraft’s life and do what they can to salvage the mission.

That includes successful power and communication to its payloads from Astrobotic’s Mission Control Center.

“We have successfully received data from all nine payloads designed to communicate with the lander. All 10 payloads requiring power have received it, while the remaining 10 payloads aboard the spacecraft are passive,” the company stated.

The lander, which is now considered a spacecraft by the company, launched atop United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan Centaur from Cape Canaveral early Monday, but after successfully separating from the Centaur second stage and establishing communications and power, the moon mission was dealt a blow when team members found it could not maintain its sun-facing position so its solar arrays could generate power.

ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur blasts off for 1st time in Space Coast launch read more