Astrobotic says that it’s given up on its plan to put a commercial spacecraft safely on the moon’s surface, due to a propellant leak that will soon leave its Peregrine lander without fuel.
The Pittsburgh-based company said there was no indication that the leak occurred as the result of the lander’s launch by United Launch Alliance. ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket made its first liftoff over the weekend with the aid of BE-4 engines provided by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.
The Astrobotic team’s working theory is that a valve between the propulsion system’s oxidizer and a store of helium that served to pressurize the oxidizer tank failed to reseal after it was actuated during spacecraft initialization.
“This led to a rush of high-pressure helium that spiked the pressure in the oxidizer tank beyond its operating limit and subsequently ruptured the tank,” Astrobotic said today in mission update.
Because of the resulting leak, mission controllers had a hard time keeping Peregrine’s solar arrays pointed toward the sun — but today Astrobotic said “the team was able to update the control algorithm and fix this issue.” The lander’s batteries are currently fully charged, and onboard cameras are sending pictures back down to Earth.
