This is an accepted version of this page
55-588: Peregrine Lunar Lander flight 01 , commonly referred to as Peregrine Mission One , was an unsuccessful American lunar lander mission. The lander, dubbed Peregrine , was built by Astrobotic Technology and carried payloads for the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Peregrine Mission One launched on 8 January 2024, at 2:18 am EST, on the maiden flight of the Vulcan Centaur (Vulcan) rocket. The goal
110-468: A partial success occurs when a spacecraft lands intact on the Moon but its in-situ operations is compromised as a result of the landing process for any reason. Landing on any Solar System body comes with challenges unique to that body. The Moon has relatively high gravity compared to that of asteroids or comets—and some other planetary satellites —and no significant atmosphere. Practically, this means that
165-476: A wet dress rehearsal of the rocket would likely delay the launch until the next launch window, on 8 January. Peregrine carries a maximum payload mass of 90 kg (200 lb) during Mission One, and it was planned to land on Gruithuisen Gamma . The payload mass for the planned second mission (Mission Two) is capped at 175 kg (386 lb), and the Mission Three and later missions would carry
220-411: A 46-day trajectory to the Moon, performing burns to enter lunar orbit and slowly approach the lunar surface. Landing was planned for 23 February 2024. Roughly seven hours after the launch, Astrobotic reported that a problem, likely with the propulsion system, had "prevented [the lander] from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation". The company conducted an unplanned maneuver of the spacecraft to turn
275-548: A brief hop off the lunar surface. The Apollo Lunar Module was the lunar lander for the United States' Apollo program . As of 2024, it is the only crewed lunar lander. The Apollo program completed six successful lunar soft-landings from 1969 until 1972; a seventh lunar landing attempt by the Apollo program was aborted when Apollo 13 's service module suffered explosive venting from its oxygen tanks. The LK lunar module
330-461: A few seconds later. The Centaur upper stage started its first burn at T+5:15, which took more than 10 minutes to complete and put the vehicle into a low Earth orbit . Following a coast phase, the Centaur fired for the second time at T+43:35 to start the trans-lunar injection burn, which lasted about three minutes. The Peregrine lander separated from the rocket at T+50:26. Peregrine was to take
385-586: A follow-up robotic lander named Beresheet 2 . India's Chandrayaan Programme conducted an unsuccessful robotic lunar soft-landing attempt on 6 September 2019 as part of its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft with the lander crashing on the Moon's surface. On 23 August 2023, the program's follow-up Chandrayaan-3 lander achieved India's first robotic soft-landing and later conducted a brief hop on 3 September 2023 to test technologies required for Indian lunar sample return mission called Chandrayaan-4 . Japan's ispace (not to be confused with China's i-Space ) attempted
440-516: A lunar soft-landing by its Hakuto-R Mission 1 robotic lander on 25 April 2023. The attempt was unsuccessful and the lander crashed into the lunar surface. The company has plans for another landing attempt in 2024. Russia's Luna-Glob program, the successor program to the Soviet Union's Luna program , launched the Luna 25 lunar lander on 10 August 2023; the probe's intended destination was near
495-401: A much stricter range of between −40 and 50 °C (−40 and 122 °F), and human comfort requires a range of 20 to 24 °C (68 to 75 °F). This means that the lander must cool and heat its instruments or crew compartment. The length of the lunar night makes it difficult to use solar electric power to heat the instruments, and nuclear heaters are often used. Achieving a soft landing
550-424: A similar method. Airbag methods are not typical. For example, NASA's Surveyor 1 probe, launched around the same time as Luna 9, did not use an airbag for final touchdown. Instead, after it arrested its velocity at an altitude of 3.4m it simply fell to the lunar surface. To accommodate the fall the spacecraft was equipped with crushable components that would soften the blow and keep the payload safe. More recently,
605-564: Is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon . As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 1972 during the United States' Apollo Program . Several robotic landers have reached the surface, and some have returned samples to Earth. The design requirements for these landers depend on factors imposed by
SECTION 10
#1732783358007660-472: Is available, and can be denoted as MON i , where i represents the percentage of nitric oxide in the mixture (e.g. MON3 contains 3% nitric oxide, MON25 25% nitric oxide). An upper limit is MON40 (40% by weight). In Europe MON 1.3 is mostly used for rocket propulsion systems, while NASA seems to prefer MON 3. A higher percentage of NO decreases the corrosiveness and oxidation potential of the liquid, but increases costs. The addition of nitric oxide also reduces
715-482: Is in contrast to a small asteroid, in which "landing" is more often called "docking" and is a matter of rendezvous and matching velocity more than slowing a rapid descent. Since rocketry is used for descent and landing, the Moon's gravity necessitates the use of more fuel than is needed for asteroid landing. Indeed, one of the central design constraints for the Apollo program's Moon landing was mass (as more mass requires more fuel to land) required to land and take off from
770-428: Is the overarching goal of any lunar lander, and distinguishes landers from impactors, which were the first type of spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. All lunar landers require rocket engines for descent. Orbital speed around the Moon can, depending on altitude, exceed 1500 m/s. Spacecraft on impact trajectories can have speeds well in excess of that. In the vacuum the only way to decelerate from that speed
825-401: Is to use a rocket engine. The stages of landing can include: Lunar landings typically end with the engine shutting down when the lander is several feet above the lunar surface. The idea is that engine exhaust and lunar regolith can cause problems if they were to be kicked back from the surface to the spacecraft, and thus the engines cut off just before touchdown. Engineers must ensure that
880-549: The Lunokhod robotic lunar rover in 1970 and 1973. Luna achieved a total of seven successful soft-landings out of 27 landing attempts. The United States' Surveyor program first soft-landed Surveyor 1 on June 2, 1966, this initial success was followed by four additional successful soft-landings, the last occurring on January 10, 1968. The Surveyor program achieved a total of five successful soft landings out of seven landing attempts through January 10, 1968. Surveyor 6 even did
935-506: The Rosetta lander, Philae . PITMS was to operate in a passive sampling mode, where molecules fall into the zenith-facing aperture and are trapped by a radiofrequency field, then sequentially released for analysis. PITMS had a unit mass resolution up to an upper mass-to-charge (m/z) limit of 150 Da. The PITMS investigation was to provide time-resolved variability of OH, H 2 O , noble gases , nitrogen , and sodium compounds released from
990-705: The South Pacific . The last contact with the spacecraft was achieved by DSS36, an antenna of the DSN in Canberra . Peregrine was the first of NASA's CLPS missions, with the second, Intuitive Machines ' Odysseus , which launched and landed on the moon in February 2024. Astrobotic will have a second landing attempt, consisting of the larger Griffin lander, with launch previously scheduled for November 2024. Lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander
1045-624: The United States , the Soviet Union cancelled both the N1 Rocket and the LK Lunar Module programs without any further development. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (also known as the Chang'e project) includes robotic lander, rover, and sample-return components; the program realized an initial successful lunar soft-landing with the Chang'e 3 spacecraft on 14 December 2013. As of 2023,
1100-404: The payload , flight rate, propulsive requirements, and configuration constraints. Other important design factors include overall energy requirements, mission duration, the type of mission operations on the lunar surface, and life support system if crewed. The relatively high gravity (higher than all known asteroids, but lower than all Solar System planets) and lack of lunar atmosphere negates
1155-439: The "spacecraft could continue in a stable sun-pointing state for approximately 40 more hours" before it would run out of fuel, then lose attitude control and power. Later, the company confirmed that Peregrine could no longer land on the Moon, although it could continue to operate as a spacecraft. Photographs taken by the spacecraft showed damage to external insulation, perhaps caused by a valve that failed to fully close, causing
SECTION 20
#17327833580071210-614: The 5th country to soft land on the moon. In January 2024, the first mission of the NASA-funded CLPS program, Peregrine Mission One , suffered a fuel leak several hours after launch, resulting in losing the ability to maintain attitude control and charge its battery, thereby preventing it from reaching lunar orbit and precluding a landing attempt. The probe subsequently burnt up in Earth's atmosphere. The second CLPS probe Odysseus landed successfully on 22 February 2024 on
1265-583: The 67-inch (170 cm) probes touched the surface. During Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong however touched down very gently by firing the engine until touchdown; some later crews shut down the engine before touchdown and felt noticeable bumps on landing, with greater compression of the landing struts. Mixed oxides of nitrogen Mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON) are solutions of nitric oxide (NO) in dinitrogen tetroxide / nitrogen dioxide (N 2 O 4 and NO 2 ). It may be used as an oxidizing agent in rocket propulsion systems. A broad range of compositions
1320-468: The CLEP has achieved three successful soft-landings out of three landing attempts, namely Chang'e 3 , Chang'e 4 and Chang'e 5 . Chang'e 4 made history by making humanity's first ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon. Israel's SpaceIL attempted a robotic lunar landing by its Beresheet lander on 4 April 2019; the attempt failed. As of 2023, SpaceIL has plans for another soft-landing attempt using
1375-582: The Chinese Chang'e 3 lander used a similar technique, falling 4m after its engine shut down. Perhaps the most famous lunar landers, those of the Apollo Program , were robust enough to handle the drop once their contact probes detected that landing was imminent. The landing gear was designed to withstand landings with engine cut-out at up to 10 feet (3.0 m) of height, though it was intended for descent engine shutdown to commence when one of
1430-632: The Moon is sacred to the Navajo and other American Indian nations. In June 2021, ULA CEO Tory Bruno announced that payload and engine-testing problems would delay the maiden flight of Vulcan, with Mission One aboard, to 2022. On 23 February 2023, ULA announced an expected launch date for the mission of 4 May 2023. After an anomaly during testing of the Vulcan Centaur on 29 March, the launch was delayed until June or July, and then until late 2023. In early December 2023, Bruno said problems found during
1485-462: The Moon, marking the United States' first unmanned lunar soft-landing in over 50 years. This mission is the first private -NASA partnership to land on the Moon and the first landing using cryogenic propellants . However, the mission experienced some anomalies, including tipping-over on one side on the lunar surface; an off-nominal initial lunar orbit, a non-functioning landing LIDAR instrument, and apparently low communication bandwidth . Later it
1540-399: The Moon. The lunar thermal environment is influenced by the length of the lunar day. Temperatures can swing between approximately −250 to 120 °C (−418.0 to 248.0 °F) (lunar night to lunar day). These extremes occur for fourteen Earth days each, so thermal control systems must be designed to handle long periods of extreme cold or heat. Most spacecraft instruments must be kept within
1595-407: The Moon. In May 2019, Mission One received its first lander contract from NASA for 14 payloads. It also had 14 commercial payloads, including small rovers from Hakuto , Team AngelicvM , and a larger rover from Carnegie Mellon University , named Andy , which has a mass of 33 kg (73 lb) and is 103 cm (41 in) tall. Another small rover, Spacebit, weighing 1.5 kg (3.3 lb),
1650-513: The South pole-Aitken basin on the lunar far side at 22:23 UTC on 1 June 2024. After the completion of sample collection and the placement of the sample on the ascender by the probe's robotic drill and robotic arm, the ascender successfully took off from atop the lander portion of the probe at 23:38 UTC on 3 June 2024. The ascender docked with the Chang'e 6 service module (the orbiter) in lunar orbit at 06:48 UTC on 6 June 2024 and subsequently completed
1705-415: The atmospheres of the bodies on which they landed to slow their descent using parachutes, reducing the amount of fuel they were required to carry. This in turn allowed larger payloads to be landed on these bodies for a given amount of fuel. For example, the 900-kg Curiosity rover was landed on Mars by a craft having a mass (at the time of Mars atmospheric entry) of 2400 kg, of which only 390 kg
Peregrine Mission One - Misplaced Pages Continue
1760-608: The full payload capacity of 265 kg (584 lb). In 2016, Astrobotic announced plans to build the Peregrine lander, based on their previous concept lander, Griffin , which was larger but with the same payload capacity. Astrobotic hired Airbus Defence and Space to help refine the lander's design. The Peregrine bus is largely of aluminum alloy, and it is reconfigurable for specific missions. Its propulsion system has five thrusters built by Frontier Aerospace, each producing 150 lb (667 N ) thrust. This propulsion system
1815-491: The inaugural flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket to launch the Peregrine mission. Lift-off from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 41 took place at 2:18 am EST. The rocket was launched in the VC2S configuration, with two solid rocket boosters and a standard-length fairing. The solid rocket boosters separated from the vehicle at T+1 minute 50 seconds. The first stage continued firing its BE-4 engines until T+4:59 and separated
1870-507: The lander uses frequencies within the X-band range for uplink as well as downlink. After landing, a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi modem is to enable wireless communication between the lander and deployed rovers on the lunar surface. Instruments The PITMS sensor had direct heritage from the Ptolemy mass spectrometer that made the first in situ measurements of volatiles and organics on comet 67P with
1925-462: The lunar south pole, but on 19 August 2023 the lander crashed on the Moon's surface. Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon made a successful lunar landing with wrong attitude, bleak signal bandwidth and even after losing one of its engines during descent but within 100 m (330 ft) of its landing spot on 19 January 2024. It carried two small LEV rovers on board deployed sepqrately, just before SLIM's touchdown. It's landing made Japan
1980-431: The main aim of its mission. China launched Chang'e 6 from China's Hainan Island on 3 May 2024; this mission seeks to conduct the first lunar sample return from the far side of the Moon . This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was successfully completed by Chang'e 5 when it returned 1.731 kg of lunar near side material to the Earth on 16 December 2020. The Chang'e 6 lander successfully landed in
2035-594: The only method of descent and landing that can provide sufficient thrust with current technology is based on chemical rockets . In addition, the Moon has a long solar day . Landers will be in direct sunlight for more than two weeks at a time, and then in complete darkness for another two weeks. This causes significant problems for thermal control. As of 2019, space probes have landed on all three bodies other than Earth that have solid surfaces and atmospheres thick enough to make aerobraking possible: Mars , Venus , and Saturn's moon Titan . These probes were able to leverage
2090-407: The oxidizer tank to rupture. Four days into the mission, the propellant leak appeared to slow, and Astrobotic reported that "there is growing optimism that Peregrine could survive much longer" than was previously anticipated. The spacecraft eventually reached a position that would have allowed it to reach the Moon with trajectory corrections. Six days into the mission, Astrobotic decided to direct
2145-513: The soil and present in the exosphere over the course of a lunar day. PITMS observations were to complement other instruments on board the Peregrine lander for a comprehensive approach to understanding the surface and exosphere composition, linking surface properties and composition to LADEE measurements from orbit, and providing a mid-latitude point of comparison for polar measurements planned by VIPER , PROSPECT, and other missions. The PITMS data
2200-459: The solar panels toward the Sun, and, after an expected communications blackout, confirmed that the spacecraft was once again generating sufficient power. However, the problem was identified as a gradual propellant leak that required constant consumption of fuel to counteract. At 21:16 EST, Astrobotic said in a statement that thrusters were operating "well beyond their expected service life cycles" and that
2255-405: The spacecraft to burn up in Earth's atmosphere to avoid space debris . In the end, the spacecraft never left the (highly elliptical) Earth orbit that the carrier rocket injected it into (except to make a controlled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere). A controlled re-entry took place at 15:59 on 18 January EST (20:59 UTC), with possible impact somewhere near Point Nemo , a spacecraft cemetery in
Peregrine Mission One - Misplaced Pages Continue
2310-453: The spacecraft uses 12 thrusters (45 N each) also powered by MON-25/MMH. The spacecraft's avionics incorporate guidance and navigation to the Moon, and a Doppler LiDAR to assist the automated landing on four legs. From Mission 2, its landing ellipse will be 100 m x 100 m, down from 24 km × 6 km previously. Peregrine is about 2.5 m wide and 1.9 m tall, and would have been able to deliver up to 265 kg (584 lb) of payload to
2365-441: The surface of the Moon. Its electrical systems are powered by a lithium-ion battery that is recharged by a solar panel made of GaInP/GaAs/Ge. Radiators and thermal insulators are used to dispose of excess heat, but the lander does not carry heaters, so the first few Peregrine landers are not expected to survive the lunar night, which lasts 14 Earth days. Future missions could be adapted to do so. For communications to Earth ,
2420-466: The table; they are added as their initial robotic and/or crewed landers are launched from Earth. The term landing attempt as used here includes any mission that was launched with the intent to land on the Moon, including all missions which failed to reach lunar orbit for any reason. A landing attempt by a spacecraft is classified as full success if it lands intact on the Moon and is situated in its designed orientation/attitude and fully functional, while
2475-548: The transfer of the sample container to the Earth rentry module at 07:24 UTC on the same day. The orbiter then left lunar orbit on 20 June 2024 with the returner, which landed in Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, completing China's lunar far side sample return mission. The following table details the success rates of past and on-going lunar soft-landing attempts by robotic and crewed lunar-landing programs. Landing programs which have not launched any probes are not included in
2530-539: The use of aerobraking , so a lander must use propulsion to decelerate and achieve a soft landing . The Luna program was a series of robotic impactors, flybys, orbiters, and landers flown by the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1976. Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon on February 3, 1966, after 11 unsuccessful attempts. Three Luna Spacecraft returned lunar soil samples to Earth from 1972 to 1976. Two other Luna spacecraft soft-landed
2585-481: The vehicle is protected enough to ensure that the fall without thrust does not cause damage. The first soft lunar landing, performed by the Soviet Luna 9 probe, was achieved by first slowing the spacecraft to a suitable speed and altitude, then ejecting a payload containing the scientific experiments. The payload was stopped on the lunar surface using airbags, which provided cushioning as it fell. Luna 13 used
2640-407: Was designed to handle the trans-lunar injection , trajectory corrections, lunar orbit insertion , and powered descent. The propulsion system can deliver an orbiter to the Moon and perform a powered soft landing. The lander can carry up to 450 kg (990 lb) of bi-propellant mass in four tanks; its composition is MON-25 / MMH , a hypergolic bi-propellant . For attitude control (orientation),
2695-476: Was designed to travel at least 10 m (33 ft) on four legs. Other payloads include a library, in microprint on nickel, with Misplaced Pages contents and Long Now Foundation 's Rosetta Project . Space burial companies Elysium Space and Celestis paid Astrobotic to carry human remains. The decision to include human remains was criticized by the Navajo Nation , whose president, Buu Nygren , argued that
2750-432: Was fuel. In comparison, the much lighter (292 kg) Surveyor 3 landed on the Moon in 1967 using nearly 700 kg of fuel. The lack of an atmosphere, however, removes the need for a Moon lander to have a heat shield and also allows aerodynamics to be disregarded when designing the craft. Although it has much less gravity than Earth, the Moon has sufficiently high gravity that descent must be slowed considerably. This
2805-626: Was redirected into Earth's atmosphere , where it burned up over the Pacific Ocean on 18 January 2024. In July 2017, Astrobotic announced an agreement with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch their Peregrine lander aboard a Vulcan launch vehicle . This first lunar lander mission, called Mission One, was initially to be launched in July 2021. On 29 November 2018, Astrobotic was made eligible to bid on NASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to deliver science and technology payloads to
SECTION 50
#17327833580072860-404: Was revealed that, though it landed successfully, one of the lander's legs broke upon landing and it tilted up on other side, 18° due to landing on a slope, but the lander survived and payloads are functioning as expected. EagleCam was not ejected prior to landing. It was later ejected on 28 February but was partially failure as it returned all types of data, except post IM-1 landing images that were
2915-545: Was the lunar lander developed by the Soviet Union as a part of several Soviet crewed lunar programs . Several LK lunar modules were flown without crew in low Earth orbit , but the LK lunar module never flew to the Moon, as the development of the N1 Rocket Launch Vehicle required for the lunar flight suffered setbacks (including several launch failures), and after the first human Moon landings were achieved by
2970-459: Was to land the first U.S.-built lunar lander on the Moon since the crewed Apollo Lunar Module on Apollo 17 in 1972. The lander carried multiple payloads, with a payload capacity of 90 kg. Shortly after the lander separated from the Vulcan rocket in lunar injection orbit, a propellant leak developed that prevented the lander from completing its mission. After six days in orbit, the spacecraft
3025-559: Was to provide a critical mid-latitude link to future polar mass specs to characterize the latitudinal migration of volatiles from equator to poles. PITMS was a joint NASA- ESA project implemented by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and ESA's contractors Open University (OU) and STFC RAL Space, with coordination and support provided by ESA's Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC). The integrated PITMS payload and science investigation were to be operated by GSFC with an international team of scientists. On 8 January 2024 ULA used
#6993