2024-01-12 10:07:20
Peregrine carries a host of instruments, which will not be able to function on the Moon as planned. Despite the failure of Astrobotic Technology’s mission, these instruments manage to light up in space.
Peregrine may not have said his last word. While it is obvious that the mission leaving on January 8, 2024 will not be able to land gently on the Moon, all is perhaps not lost. Astrobotic Technology, the company that undertook this space adventure with the support of NASA, gave encouraging news in a statement published on January 11.
Remember that Peregrine’s main problem concerns its propulsion, hampered by a propellant leak. “ As Peregrine emerges from a planned communications outage with NASA’s DSN ground network [ndlr : le Deep Space Network]we are pleased to announce that the team’s efforts to collect payload data were successful, annonce Astrobotic. We successfully received data from all 9 payloads designed to communicate with the lander. »
For the mission team, this is probably a relief. Although Peregrine remains in critical condition, communications with the probe’s various instruments provide material for analysis. “ We are proud of the mission team who achieved this incredible feat under such difficult circumstances », Adds Astrobotic in its publication.
An image sent by Peregrine. We can see the wheels of the Iris rover. // Source : Astrobotic Technology
Peregrine’s rover will never land on the Moon, but it has a message for Earth
Among the payloads that might have been ignited on board the lander, is the small rover Iris, designed by Carnegie Mellon University (the wheels of which can be seen in the photo of Peregrine, above). There is also the radiation detector LETS (“Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer”), which was to be used to measure radiation on the surface of the Moon. This is also the case for the neutron spectrometer NSS (“Neutron Spectrometer System”), developed by the Ames Research Center, which was supposed to look for evidence of the presence of water ice and study the composition of lunar regolith.
In another situation point dated January 11, Astrobotic Techbology also indicates that the Iris rover was able to send a message from space: “ Hello, Earth ! » (« Hello, Earth! “). As for the LETS and NSS instruments, they are used to measure “ the radiative environment in interplanetary space around the Earth and the Moon », indicated NASA in its own press release.
The escape aboard Peregrine slows down a bit
According to Astrobotic’s latest estimates, Peregrine can still rely on its remaining propellant for a period of 48 hours. This is more than the team thought the day before, January 10. “ Our estimates for propellant life have changed because the leak rate has slowed faster than expected », Explains the company.
Peregrine has been operating in space for 3 days now, his journey having taken him more than 360,000 km from Earth. Everything remains uncertain, because it is not impossible that the flight will start once more, leaving only Peregrine’s final sigh as a memory of his mission.
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