SEE IT: Astrobotic shares photo of Earth taken during Peregrine mission
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With an update Wednesday morning on X, formerly known as Twitter, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic confirmed that the Peregrine mission it is spearheading for NASA will not make it to the moon.
As of right now, the rocket is approximately 200,000 miles from Earth, and once Peregrine runs out of fuel, all bets are off as to what will happen with the craft and its payload.
In a post on X around 6:30 p.m., Astrobotic shared a photo of Earth taken from the first day of operations.
"Our flight dynamics team has confirmed that the curved sliver in this image taken on our first day of operations is, in fact, Earth!" the post said. "This image from our spacecraft simulator shows the camera's view of Earth at the time the photo was taken."
The Peregrine lunar lander is the first American, non-government-built spacecraft bound for the surface of the moon, and it is the first moon mission for the U.S. in more than 50 years.
The last major moon mission to fail for the U.S. was back in 1970 with Apollo 13. But Apollo 13 was an actual crewed mission that ran into trouble and though the mission was aborted, the three astronauts on board made it back to Earth safely.
For Peregrine, the human stakes are zero. This is an uncrewed mission, but it's carrying Carnegie Mellon University's Iris lunar rover and millions of dollars in science and tech that may be rendered unusable.
However, the next uncrewed moon mission is set for later this year. Astrobotic's Griffin is slated to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and it will carry a NASA rover called VIPER to the moon's south pole to search for signs of ice on the lunar surface.
There is hope from the space community that the problems faced on this mission will help the next one to succeed.
