When NASA attempted to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years on January 8, more was at risk than just $108 million worth of development and equipment. The agency earned the ire of the Native American Navajo people, who made a bid to stop the launch because of an unusual inclusion in the payload.
The Peregrine lander has less than a day to live, and the company behind the spacecraft may have figured out why its mission was doomed shortly after its launch.
Astrobotic, the team behind the Peregrine spacecraft, is urgently working to extract any possible value from its failing mission. This comes after a catastrophic propellant leak occurred just after yesterday’s launch, ending the spacecraft’s attempt to land on the Moon.
A mission to land a private U.S. lander on the Moon, and the first U.S. lander since the Apollo era, looks to be ending before it even had a chance to get started.
An upcoming launch will usher in a new era of commercial payloads being dropped off to deep space destinations like the Moon. As we gain greater access to space, things are going to start getting weird.
