Astrobotic reveals the chances of landing on the moon

ArabiaWeather - Astrobotic announced on Tuesday that the robotic lunar lander, which was launched on Monday aboard a rocket, “faces challenges in the process of landing on the moon’s surface” and indicated that it had run out of large amounts of fuel.

The company estimates that Peregrine, the spacecraft, has about 40 hours of fuel remaining. Despite this, the space robotics company announced that it intends to continue operating the spacecraft until the fuel runs out.

Astrobotic had hoped that Peregrine would be the first American lunar landing since the last Apollo landing in 1972. It would also represent the first lunar landing ever by a private company, a major accomplishment that was only a pipe dream in Last few years.

Peregrine was launched aboard the new Vulcan rocket, developed by the United Launch Alliance project in collaboration with Boeing and Lockheed Martin over a decade.

The company announced on Monday that an "unfortunately glitch" had prevented it from stabilizing the vehicle's orientation away from the sun, which is vital to saving energy.

Peregrine was expected to land on the moon's surface on February 23, bringing with it scientific payloads intended to collect data about the lunar surface ahead of future human missions.

Read also: An American tribe protests sending human remains to the moon

Source: Reuters