Astrobotic Reorients World's First Commercial Lander To Moon After It Faced 'Anomaly' Few Hours Post Launch

Astrobotic has successfully re-established communications with the Peregrine lunar lander, and conducted a correction manoeuvre to reorient Peregrine's solar array towards the Sun.

Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission One, the world's first commercial lander to the Moon launched on January 8, 2024, faced an "anomaly" hours after launch. However, Astrobotic has successfully re-established communications with Peregrine, and conducted a correction manoeuvre to reorient Peregrine's solar array towards the Sun, the American firm said in a mission update. Astrobotic is now charging the battery, and ground control teams are evaluating the data received, and trying to understand the reason behind the anomaly. 

The Peregrine lunar lander is also the United States' first Moon lander to be launched in over 50 years. Launched atop the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket, the Peregrine lander successfully separated from the launch vehicle, and was receiving telemetry through NASA's Deep Space Network. 

All the propulsion systems were successfully activated, following which Peregrine entered a safe operational state. However, after this, an anomaly occurred, preventing the lander from achieving a stable Sun-pointing orientation. The Astrobotic team is trying to obtain and analyse more data to understand the situation. 

The mission, launched at 2:18 am ET (12:48 pm IST) on January 8, was the inaugural launch of the ULA's next-generation Vulcan rocket. The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. 

The ULA claims that Vulcan's upper stage, called Centaur V, is the highest-performing rocket stage in the world. Centaur V is extremely flexible, and can ensure the most complex orbital insertions in the most challenging orbits. The engines of the Vulcan rocket have been designed by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.

The ULA calls this mission the first certification flight (Cert-1) mission, while Astrobotic calls it the Peregrine Mission 1. The launch vehicle carried two payloads: Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander, which is a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (initiative), and the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission, also known as the Celestis Enterprise Flight. 

The Celestis Enterprise Flight carries individual flight capsules containing cremated remains, complete human genome DNA samples, and the names and messages of several people from across the globe.

NASA launched five payloads onboard Astrobotic's Peregrine lander.