- Kenya airport whistleblower fears for his life
- Sheinbaum to take office as Mexico's first woman president
- Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
- US port officials gird for strike despite last-minute bargaining
- With 118 dead from Hurricane Helene, Biden defends US government response
- Breeder who tried to create enormous trophy sheep jailed in US
- Qatar Airways seeking 25% stake in Virgin Australia
- US port officials gird for strike as labor talks stay stuck
- As toll crosses 100, Trump puts Hurricane Helene at election center stage
- US Fed Chair sees 'further disinflation' in economy
- Epic Games sues Google and Samsung over app store
- Officials see no shortages from likely US port strike
- UK families of Gaza hostages warn Lebanon attack 'takes focus away'
- Shares in Stellantis, Aston Martin skid on profit warnings
- Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
- ECB chief backs bank mergers amid UniCredit, Commerzbank talk
- China stocks soar on stimulus, but US and Europe retreat
- 100 dead in storm Helene damage, flooding across US southeast
- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
- Pope says Church must 'seek forgiveness' for child sexual abuse
- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
Private US lunar lander faces failure after 'critical' fuel loss
A historic private mission to land on the Moon faced near-certain failure Monday after the spacecraft suffered a "critical loss" of fuel, dealing a major blow to America's hopes of placing its first robot on the lunar surface in five decades.
Fixed to the top of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan rocket, which was making its first flight, Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander blasted off overnight from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, then successfully separated from its launch vehicle.
A few hours later, Astrobotic began reporting technical troubles, starting with an inability to orient Peregrine's top-mounted solar panel towards the Sun and keep its onboard battery topped up, due to a malfunction in its propulsion system.
Though engineers "improvised" a way to tilt the spacecraft in the right direction and keep its power going, the company posted on X that the same failure appeared to be the causing "critical loss of propellant."
On Monday night, Astrobotic said it had approximately 40 hours of fuel remaining before Peregrine entered an "uncontrollable tumble."
"At this time, the goal is to get Peregrine as close to lunar distance as we can before it loses the ability to maintain its Sun-pointing position and subsequently loses power," the company said, leaving observers wondering whether they may attempt a crash landing, even if controlled descent was out of the question.
Earlier, they released an image taken from a mounted camera that showed extensive damage to an outer layer of the spacecraft, saying it was evidence of the propulsion system anomaly without explaining further.
Peregrine was supposed to reach the Moon, then orbit for several weeks before landing in a mid-latitude region called Sinus Viscositatis on February 23.
A soft landing on Earth's nearest celestial neighbor has thus far only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.
China has successfully landed three times since 2013, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat last year.
- Pivot to private -
The United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and ship its hardware at a fraction of the cost under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program -- but Astrobotic's apparent failure could lead to criticism of the new strategy.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson however doubled down, praising the success of ULA's Vulcan rocket on its maiden voyage, which maintained the company's 100 percent success rate in more than 150 launches.
"Spaceflight is a daring adventure, and @astrobotic is making progress for CLPS deliveries and Artemis. @NASA will continue to expand our reach in the cosmos with our commercial partners," Nelson said on X.
NASA paid Astrobotic more than $100 million, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is looking to launch in February and land near the Moon's south pole.
The space agency hopes to use such missions to probe the lunar environment, paving the way for its Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, in preparation for future missions to Mars.
- Failure happens -
Controlled touchdowns on the Moon are challenging, with roughly half of all attempts failing.
In the absence of an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent.
Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency, have all ended in failure -- though Japan's space agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September.
In addition to the science instruments it carried for NASA, Peregrine contains more colorful cargo paid for by private customers, such as a physical Bitcoin as well as cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, and a dog.
The Navajo Nation, America's largest Indigenous tribe, had objected to sending human remains to the Moon, calling it a desecration of a sacred space. Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with White House and NASA officials, their misgivings were ultimately ignored.
A.Levy--CPN