Hi friends, it’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero.
A week after watching the spectacular and successful first launch of the new United Launch Alliance rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, the latest update regarding the mission’s historic payload appears to seal the fate for the Peregrine lunar lander.
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Since first reporting the fuel leak on its spacecraft, Astrobotic has provided 17 updates about extending Peregrine’s life and even having some of its experiments onboard go online despite the spacecraft’s days being numbered.
What was planned to be the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon (the first of any American spacecraft on the lunar surface since Apollo 17) is now expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, never achieving its mission objective of studying the surface of the moon in preparation for NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon in a few more years under the Artemis program.
One of the updates from Astrobotic over the weekend said Peregrine is on a path that brings the spacecraft back towards Earth, “where it will like burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Astrobotic reiterates that landing on the moon is not possible and from the time that disappointing news first came down hours after launch, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Astrobotic team, including the company’s CEO I interviewed before the launch. We had a conversation at the KSC press site regarding his excitement that you can watch here. Fun fact: the company is out of Pittsburgh, my hometown.
In his response now to Peregrine being on the brink of burning up in the atmosphere, John Thornton continues to express optimism about his company’s future after working through a lot of adversity during the last week.
“I am so proud of what our team has accomplished with this mission. It is a great honor to witness firsthand the heroic efforts of our mission control team overcoming enormous challenges to recover and operate the spacecraft after Monday’s propulsion anomaly. I look forward to sharing these and more remarkable stories after the mission concludes on January 18. This mission has already taught us so much and has given me great confidence that our next mission to the moon will achieve a soft landing,” Thornton said.
Here’s wishing Astrobotic a total success next time.
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👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.
Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.
Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).
Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!
From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)
Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.
After seven years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.
Have a great launch into the rest of your week!