Astrobotic, the aerospace company, announced on Wednesday (10th) that its lunar lander “Peregrine” had “no chance of a soft landing” due to a propellant leak. Astrobotic stated that the lander will continue to function as a spacecraft, with the propellant estimated to be depleted in approximately 40 hours. The team will continue to work on finding ways to extend the operational lifespan of Peregrine. The company is currently receiving data and exploring spaceflight operations for components and software related to the next lunar lander mission, “Griffin”.
According to previous reports by Zombit, the Peregrine, carrying physical Bitcoins and Dogecoins, successfully launched into space on Monday with the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket and successfully separated from the rocket. However, after the failure of the Peregrine’s moon landing mission, the journey to the moon for Bitcoin and Dogecoin also fell through.
Astrobotic released space photos taken by Peregrine in its mission update, with the DHL MoonBox payload, covered by multiple layers of Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI), positioned slightly to the left in the middle of the photo. Astrobotic stated that it includes “hundreds of thousands of messages from people on Earth”.
