American Company's Spacecraft Malfunctions on Its Way to the Moon

[Prairie Gates]

Source: The New York Times

The first NASA-financed commercial mission to send a robotic spacecraft to the surface of the moon will most likely not be able to make it there.

The lunar lander, named Peregrine and built by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, encountered problems shortly after it lifted off early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch of the rocket, a brand-new design named Vulcan, was flawless, successfully sending Peregrine on its journey.

But a failure in the lander’s propulsion system depleted its propellant and most likely ended the mission’s original lunar ambitions.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/science/nasa-moon-lander-malfunction-peregrine.html

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Oh my.

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Damn.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Good.

[Orrex]

3. Only missed the target by 238,891 miles

[nocoincidences]

10. Somehow reminds me of Hitchhiker's Guide

definition of Flying:

Throwing yourself at the ground and missing.

[JT45242]

4. NASA knew it couldn't waste government time, money, and resources...for profit companies will just charge more next time

Privatizing government operations and becoming reliant on for profit companies is a horrible idea. The fruits of the public investment become private patents rather than public domain. Failure costs get added to the project and the next to recoup profits rather than being as certain as humanly possible that it will work correctly the first time.

The John Oliver thing on Elon Musk talked about how NASA said that they could never risk having rockets blow up like Elon does. I also remember Sally Ride saying hat one of the big differences between the Soviet space program and NASA, especially in the beginning was that only NASA cared about whether the astronauts got home in one piece and alive. Since the Soviets did not launch on live TV, they could show only the positive footage. If negative things happened, then no one saw or heard about it.

Probably cannot be undone like when school districts sell all their buses and opt to be a customer to a bus company, the overhead to buy back into all the stuff becomes prohibitively expensive. But maybe a visionary will have the government once again take over the space agency rather than effectively treating it as a kickback agent to a handful of billionaires.

[yankee87]

17. Great comment

I 100% agree with what you wrote.

[usonian]

5. Commercial contract.

Like, was there a warranty?

Asking for a friend.

[PSPS]

6. Oh well. At least Astrobotic Technology CEO's mistress got her boob job, courtesy of the taxpayer.

[LauraInLA]

7. I wonder if the families who paid for their loved ones' ashes

to be delivered to the moon will now sue for breach of contract, etc. I suppose they must have signed waivers.

[FreepFryer]

8. Navajo warned em (nt)

[Prairie Gates]

9. The ancestors intervened

[Igel]

11. And other deistic myths.

Like one, like'm all.

[Prairie Gates]

13. ...

[2naSalit]

12. So now...

Those human remains, ashes, are just another piece of space junk!

[markodochartaigh]

14. Arthur Guiterman

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug

Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,

And I don't feel so well myself

[LudwigPastorius]

15. At least the "passengers" will get a probable burial-at-sea in a few years.

[LudwigPastorius]

16. I think the same guy who worked on the propellant system runs their website.

https://www.astrobotic.com/astrobotics-peregrine-launches-to-the-moon/

[sakabatou]

18. Did they mix up metric and imperial again?