Peregrine Mission-1 Faces Anomaly

January 9, 2024

A new era of commercial lunar exploration dawned recently as NASA booked passage on a private company’s robotic moon lander alongside some unusual companions – the cremated remains of Star Trek icons and renowned scientists.

First Private Moon Landing Since Apollo

The Peregrine Mission-1 lander marks the first US spacecraft to touch down on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 astronauts departed the moon in 1972. The small lander is owned and operated by startup Astrobotic, which was awarded a $108 million contract by NASA to deliver scientific payloads to the moon.

Lifting off at 7:18am UK time aboard the Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the mission heralds a new age of commercial cargo transport to the moon. With NASA facing budget constraints, buying third party lunar delivery services at a fraction of the cost of launching its own missions allows the agency to advance its lunar exploration goals on the cheap.

Touchdown of the Astrobotic lander is scheduled for February 23rd. The craft will spend nearly two weeks circumnavigating the moon before attempting the precise powered descent to target a landing site on the volcanic plain Lacus Mortis.

Besides NASA’s five research instruments on board, the lander carries a special assortment of symbolic human remains specially chosen to inspire interest in renewed lunar exploration.

Propulsion System Anomaly Jeopardizes Mission

The Peregrine Mission 1, after separating from the launch vehicle, experienced an alarming anomaly.

Initially, the craft successfully detached from the rocket to orient itself toward the sun. But within hours, controllers lost the ability to maintain Peregrine’s proper solar pointing attitude and communicate with the probe.

Newly downlinked imagery revealed disturbing signs of damage to the spacecraft’s thermal insulation blankets, matching telemetry data indicating a serious failure within the propulsion system itself. This system is critical for slowing the lander’s descent to gently touch down on the lunar plains after the 13 day voyage.

With main power generation disrupted, Peregrine’s battery drained to dangerously low levels, causing a worrisome communications blackout. The team enacted an emergency procedure to rotate the lander’s solar array toward sunlight, allowing the battery to slowly recharge.

Star Trek Icons Memorialized

Included onboard the Peregrine lander are small vials of cremated ashes representing renowned Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and iconic series actors James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, and DeForest Kelley.

By sending their mortal remains to rest among lunar craters named after the show’s characters, it helps fulfill cast members’ wishes to be memorialized among the stars and planets they helped popularize. Roddenberry’s ashes will be the first laid to rest on another celestial body besides Earth.

The privately-funded Celestis Memorial Spaceflights enterprise worked alongside Astrobotic to organize the Star Trek-themed payload they dub the Enterprise Flight. They hope it will marshal public excitement around the symbolic event to advance the Star Trek vision of humanty journeying out into the cosmos.

Presidential DNA Strands Included

Alongside the Star Trek legends riding shotgun on this historic moon voyage are stands of hair representing the full genomic DNA sequences of influential former US Presidents George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy.

Coded into their DNA is the knowledge that propelled all three leaders into advancing the frontier of space exploration during their respective eras. Washington helped survey the American wilderness, Eisenhower created NASA, and Kennedy launched the drive to the moon. Scientists proposed including them as a kind of time capsule containing the essence of humanity’s constant urge to keep pushing boundaries.

Having their DNA stranded safely delivered to the lunar surface after a 5 day journey pays tribute to that enduring pioneering spirit. It also demonstrates the incredible technological progress made that now allows such feats.

Why the Moon Again?

So why return to Earth’s orbiting satellite after a 50 year absence of crewed missions? The discovery of potentially accessible water ice concentrated in polar craters has largely renewed scientific and commercial interest.

Lunar water could hydrated visiting astronauts while also providing a source of precious oxygen, drinking water, and rocket fuel. This would hugely reduce the logistical challenges and expenses of longer-range missions to Mars by facilitating the establishment of permanent fuel depots on the moon instead of lugging everything directly from Earth.

The moon could also serve as a proving ground for technologies and techniques needed for more ambitious interplanetary travel. Its relative proximity makes getting there easier while still providing relevant operations experience.

Over a dozen different countries now have lunar landing missions in development. Alongside national space agencies, there are over a hundred private companies devising Commercial Lunar Payload Service landers for carrying experiments, infrastructure, and even tourists to previously unvisited parts of the moon.

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