Peregrine (lunar mission)

2024: Spacecraft landing on the moon fails

On January 8, 2023, for the first time in history, a non-state company successfully launched a spacecraft to the moon. This is a project called Peregrine.

The launch of the device using the Vulcan heavy-class launch vehicle of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) was carried out from the 41st launch pad of the American Space at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The lander, created by the American company Astrobotic Technologies, will deliver a payload to the moon with a total weight of up to 90 kg.

The device, equipped with five NASA research tools, landed on the moon on February 23, 2023.

Intuitive Machines, which operates the Odysseus lunar vehicle, said the vehicle was "alive and well" despite flipping onto its side after landing. Although the Odysseus made it to the surface unharmed, data analysis by flight engineers showed the six-legged vehicle apparently "tripped on its own legs" as it neared the end of its descent, company officials said at a briefing the next day.

The scientific tasks of the mission were to study the exosphere of the Earth's satellite, the thermal properties and hydrogen content in the lunar regolith, magnetic fields and the radiation situation. To this end, infrared and neural spectrometers, as well as an instrument for measuring radiation levels, will be delivered to the lunar surface.

World's first non-state spacecraft launched for the moon

Despite the fact that the mission project was developed by the American private company Astrobotic, it is NASA that acts as the main sponsor, allocating $108 million for its implementation. According to The New York Times, the US space agency is interested in developing the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. This initiative in the future will enable Washington to use private contractors to transport various cargo to the lunar surface.

At the same time, NASA planned to send twice as many developments to the moons, but in November 2023 it abandoned some of them due to concerns about the success of the mission to land the device.

The launch of the Peregrine is the first cargo flight of its kind - but according to NASA's plan, it is far from the only one. The main lunar event of 2024 will be the Artemis-2 mission (manned flyby of the moon), but the second most important lunar project can be safely called the delivery of cargo to the satellite of our planet.^[1]

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