The much-anticipated American moon mission ended in flames over the Pacific Ocean this week. The spacecraft developed unsurmountable problems on January 9th at its launch with no chance of a soft lunar landing.
The Peregrine One, US spacecraft launched last week to try to land on the Moon has signed off.
The spacecraft developed a propulsion fault, dashing any hopes of a successful lunar touch-down. As a result, the mission was terminated with the command to destroy the Peregrine One as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, the private operator behind the mission, directed the spacecraft to burn up upon re-entry. A tracking station in Canberra, Australia, confirmed the loss of signal with Peregrine at 20:59 pm GMT (3:59 pm EST).
There is no expectation for any remains of Peregrine to survive impact with the ocean surface, and even if they did, the debris would fall far away from any populated areas.
Astrobotic’s original objective was to deliver five NASA instruments to the Moon’s surface.
