The Indians did not approve of the presence of ashes on the Peregrine lunar probe: it is a fiasco

Private firm and NASA mission fails due to fuel leak

It seems that the American Peregrine spacecraft, which the private company Astrobotic Technology and NASA planned to land on the Moon, will face a similar fate to the Russian Luna-25 – it will not accomplish its intended goal. We tried to figure out what awaits the earthly envoy with Russian specialists.

Peregrine (or “Sapsan” in Russian), launched on January 8 on a Vulkan rocket, was to be the first American craft in more than 50 years to be landed on the Moon, near the Ocean of Storms, the largest lunar sea located in the western parts of the visible side of the Moon. The lander’s 20 instruments would try to detect water molecules, measure radiation, and determine the presence of hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane in the surface and subsurface regolith.

Among the payload, the Sapsan carried a small lunar rover developed by Carnegie Mellon University and several other rovers from the Mexican Space Agency.

In addition to scientific equipment, Peregrine carried memorial capsules with the ashes of deceased US citizens, the places for which were purchased by a commercial company.

The launch was originally planned for December 24, 2023, but was postponed to January 8. The landing on the Moon was planned for February 23.

However, just seven hours after launch, experts announced an “anomaly” that prevented stable orientation to the Sun and a soft landing on the Moon. After 10 hours, the orientation problem was solved, but another one was discovered – a fuel leak – and the engine stopped functioning.

By the morning of January 9, NASA was talking about the last remaining 40 hours, during which the device would still be able to remain oriented towards the Sun due to maneuvering engines. After the machine costs almost 80 million dollars, it will most likely turn into space debris and fly past its destination.

Among the listed instruments that made up the Sapsan payload were the LETS radiation sensor, which was supposed to collect information about the radiation situation on the Moon, NIRVSS – to measure the chemical composition of the regolith and map the surface temperature. The lander also carries the TRN instrument for landing on the lunar surface with an accuracy of 100 meters, as well as a navigation lidar – Navigation Doppler Ledar (NDL), developed by NASA Research Center, which was supposed to determine the exact speed and position of the Peregrine spacecraft. By the way, according to the developers of Luna-25, the American lidar is probably the only device that was not similar on our landing module.

Comment from full member of the Russian Cosmonautics Federation Alexander Zheleznikov:

– By and large, Peregrine did not bring anything revolutionary to the Moon, the mission was mainly commercial, image-building. However, on the other hand, the presence of several NASA instruments on board indicated that the space agency also considered it as a training vessel before the main missions within the Artemis project. Still, the United States has not made automatic landings on the Moon for longer than our country – the last time they did this was in 1968.

– What did the device carry on board?

There was a lot of stuff there: ashes in capsules, DNA samples, children’s drawings, photographs, they even somehow managed to stuff a bottle of mineral water inside, apparently for advertising purposes… By the way, the Navajo Indian tribe protested against the shipment ashes to the moon, which it considers sacred.

However, the loss of one American aircraft does not mean stopping their flights for several years, as happens with us. Already starting in February, several more private missions are preparing to go to the Moon.