A US lunar lander has "no chance" of making a soft landing on the Moon due to a fuel leak, the company behind the mission says.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic said there was enough propellant to operate its Peregrine lander as a spacecraft.
The lander is expected to run out of fuel in about 40 hours, the firm said shortly after 17:00 GMT on Tuesday.
Peregrine ran into trouble almost as soon as it came off the top of its launch rocket on Monday.
"Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon," Astrobotic said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.
8 Comments
AlbertSpangler@lemmings.world · 16 pts · 2y
SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 2y
Truly the innovation offered only by the private sector
PoopingCough@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 2y
Private companies are allowed to have many failures before they succeed, unlike NASA who lose public goodwill and therefore potentially lose funding when they fail. SpaceX blew up a ton of rockets before they succeeded in having the first reusable rocket. It's much faster to iterate this way but also more expensive, so NASA cant really operate this way. Although on the other hand all the private aerospace companies seem to rely on government subsidies so it's pretty crappy we cant just fund NASA more.
NMBA@mstdn.ca · 1 pts · 2y
wahming@monyet.cc · 2 pts · 2y
Points at SpaceX
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2y
They didn't get the extended warranty.
Kolanaki@yiffit.net · 10 pts · 2y
Land it hard then 🤷🏻♂️
Basilisk@mtgzone.com · 1 pts · 2y
FR It ain't like anyone's gonna be popping by for a visit. Landed nicely on the surface or energetically buried 30m below the surface, the ashes are still on the moon.
AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y
theodewere@kbin.social · 1 pts · 2y
a lunar orbital space station sure would be handy
raktheundead@fedia.io · -1 pts · 2y
Shouldn't have stuck that stupid fucking Bitcoin shit inside.