[UPDATE] Lunar Landing Attempt: Peregrine Mission Scrapped After Suffering 'Critical' Fuel Loss

Astrobotic Technology was forced to abandon its Peregrine moon landing mission after the spacecraft was found to be suffering from what experts said was "critical" fuel loss.

On Monday, the U.S. lunar lander launched from Florida in hopes of becoming the first American spacecraft to touch down on the moon since the Apollo missions more than five decades ago.

US Lunar Lander Suffers "Critical" Fuel Loss

[UPDATE] Lunar Landing Attempt: Peregrine Mission Scrapped After Suffering 'Critical' Fuel Loss

(Photo : CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine moon landing mission was scrapped after the spacecraft was found to be suffering from "critical" fuel loss.

The company said that its Peregrine Lunar Lander started the day by lifting off on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. It then separated approximately 310 miles above Earth roughly 50 minutes after takeoff.

In a statement, Astrobotic Technology said that the avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, were all powered on and performing as expected.

However, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company then said that an anomaly occurred, which prevented them from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation. Astrobotic Technology said that the lunar lander was designed to have an onboard solar panel facing the sun for "maximum power generation" while it travels to orbit, as per Fox Business.

The situation came after a known communication blackout with the Peregrine Lunar Lander and the company said that its team improvised a maneuver that successfully reoriented the craft's solar array towards the sun.

The company added that the Mission Anomaly Board continued to evaluate the data that they were receiving and was assessing the status of what was thought to be the cause of the issue, which was found to be a failure within the propulsion system.

It noted that the failure was causing a "critical loss of propellant," adding that the team was working to try and stabilize the loss. However, given the situation, they have prioritized maximizing the science and data that they are able to capture using the spacecraft.

First Moon Landing Since the Apollo Missions

Astrobotic Technology said that their goal now is to get Peregrine as close to lunar distance as they can before it loses the ability to maintain its sun-pointing position, which would result in the loss of power, according to CNN.

On Monday afternoon, the company publicly shared the first image taken by the Peregrine lander while out in space. The image showed that the craft's outer layers of insulation were crinkled. In a social media post, the company said that the distorted material was "the first visual clue" that aligned with their telemetry data that pointed to a propulsion system anomaly.

Astrobotic Technology developed the Peregrine spacecraft under a $10 million contract with NASA. it was designed from the outset to be relatively cheap, which seeks to fulfill the space agency's vision to reduce the cost of putting a robotic lander on the lunar surface by asking the private sector to compete for such contracts.

The company said that despite the setback, there was some good news, which is that the mission team had managed to get the lander's battery fully charged. This would allow them to use existing resources to perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible, said Space.