WASHINGTON, January 8 The American private lunar module Peregrine, launched on the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle, began to lose fuel, experts are trying to stabilize the situation, the Astrobotic company reported on the social network X.
«A problem in the propulsion system leads to a critical loss of fuel, experts are trying to stabilize the level leaks, but given the situation, the priority is the maximum possible collection of scientific information and (flight) data,” the post says.
It is clarified that possible alternative mission options for the module are currently being assessed.
On Monday morning, America's newest launch vehicle, Vulcan, took off in Florida with the privately owned Peregrine lander. After some time, the module, which Astrobotic is building under a contract within the NASA program, separated normally; at that time, all its systems were working. The problems became known approximately eight hours after launch.
As reported by Astrobotic, an anomaly occurred that prevented the device from taking a stable position with orientation towards the Sun. According to a preliminary assessment, the cause was a malfunction when starting the engines.
Peregrine is supposed to deliver to the Moon five NASA scientific instruments, a stone from Everest, the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, the ashes of earthlings and several other symbolic objects provided by the mission's commercial partners from around the world. The module, which the United States is positioning as its first private lunar landing vehicle, is designed to deliver up to 90 kilograms of cargo. Its landing on the Earth satellite was planned for February 23.
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