The American private lunar lander which took off on Monday but shortly after experienced serious problems in flight has “no chance” of being able to land smoothly on the Moon as initially planned, the company Astrobotic, which developed the lander, announced on Tuesday. device.
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The mission was to mark the first landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program more than 50 years ago. Astrobotic could also have become the first private company to successfully land on the Moon.
Because of a fuel “leak,” “there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon,” Astrobotic wrote in a statement published on X.
Despite this failure, “we still have enough fuel to continue operating the vehicle as a ship,” Astrobotic said. “We currently estimate that we will run out of fuel in approximately 40 hours.”
The young start-up, based in Pennsylvania, said it continues to receive “valuable data” for its next moon landing attempt.
The machine took off Monday from Florida, aboard the new Vulcan Centaur rocket from the ULA industrial group.
The lander, named Peregrine, was developed by Astrobotic with financial support from NASA, which commissioned this company to transport scientific equipment to the Moon, a contract worth $108 million.
The launch inaugurated a series of missions supported by the American space agency, eager to encourage the development of a lunar economy. NASA has signed a contract with several companies, including Astrobotic, to send experiments and technologies to the Moon – a program called CLPS.
This failure therefore also marks a setback for the American space agency, even if it was not directly involved in the maneuver. However, she said she was aware of the risks in banking on young companies.
“Spaceflight is a daring adventure,” NASA boss Bill Nelson reacted Monday on X after the announcement of the difficulties encountered. “NASA will continue to extend its reach into the cosmos with our commercial partners,” he promised.
Another American company selected by NASA for its program, Intuitive Machines, will attempt the adventure again very soon: it must take off for the Moon in mid-February at the earliest, with a SpaceX rocket.
“Holy place”
Astrobotic’s mission also included cargo from private customers on board.
Among them, the ashes or DNA of dozens of people, including those of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the famous science fiction television series Star Trek. A partnership with the Celestis company, specializing in “commemorative spaceflights”.
Sending these ashes to the Moon aroused the anger of the Navajo Native American tribe, who denounced the “desecration of a sacred place”.
Celestis CEO Charles M. Chafer said Tuesday that his company had enough samples to include its customers in a new flight “in case the mission does not arrive at the planned destination.”
To date, only four nations — the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India — have successfully landed a craft on the Moon.
In recent years, private Israeli and Japanese companies have also attempted to land on the moon, but these missions ended in crashes.
A mission from the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) is also due to attempt to land on the moon in about two weeks. Russia, for its part, spectacularly missed a moon landing this summer.
