An American spacecraft, which was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday (Jan 98) with an aim to perform a controlled landing on the Moon, suffered technical issues.
The mission grabbed headlines with private industry leading the charge, but Astrobotic, the company behind the mission, confirmed a few hours after the launch that its aircraft experienced an “anomaly” that stopped it from pointing its solar panels stably at the Sun.
In a press release, Astrobotic said, “After successfully separating from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began receiving telemetry via the NASA Deep Space Network.”
“Astrobotic-built avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected. After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state,” it added.
“Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation,” it further said.
