WASHINGTON: A historic commercial US mission to the Moon failed after suffering a critical loss of fuel, organisers admitted on Tuesday, ending for the time being America’s hopes of placing its first spacecraft on the lunar surface since the Apollo era.

Fixed to the top of United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander blasted off on Monday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, then successfully separated from its launch vehicle.

But a few hours later, Astrobotic began reporting malfunctions, starting with an inability to orient Peregrine’s solar panel towards the Sun and keep its battery topped up, owing to a propulsion glitch that also damaged the spacecraft’s exterior. The company said it had “no chance of soft landing” on the Moon.

NASA had paid the company more than $100 million to ship scientific hardware to a mid-latitude region of the Moon to answer questions about the surface composition and radiation in the surrounding environment, as it prepares to send astronauts back to Earth’s nearest neighbor later this decade.

Man on Moon plan pushed back

The United States has pushed back its planned return of astronauts to the Moon’s surface from 2025 to 2026, Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said on Tuesday.

Its first mission, an uncrewed test flight to the Moon and back called Artemis 1, took place in 2022, after several postponements. Artemis 2, involving a crew that doesn’t land on the surface, has been postponed from later this year to September next year.

Artemis 3, in which the first woman and first person of colour are to set foot on lunar soil at the Moon’s south pole, should now take place in Sept 2026.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2024