Commercial Lunar Payload Service Initiative

NASA’s first flight under the commercial lunar delivery service has been completed, and it’s something of a mixed bag.

On one hand, Astrobotic was successful in launching a handful of scientific payloads into space, its lunar payload suffered a propulsion issue and smacked into the moon. The mission saw a successful launch and separation from the rocket on January 8th, but a propulsion issue failed to deliver the Peregrine to the moon. As such, NASA and Astrobotic figured the best way to minimize risk to civilians and responsibly dispose of the aircraft would be to direct the spacecraft towards Earth to be disposed of on re-entry.

“Space exploration is a daring task, and the science and spaceflight data collected from Astrobotic’s lunar lander is better preparing NASA for future CLPS deliveries and crewed missions under Artemis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The future of exploration is strengthened by collaboration. Together with our commercial partners, NASA is supporting a growing commercial space economy that will help take humanity back to the Moon, and beyond.”

“Astrobotic’s Peregrine mission provided an invaluable opportunity to test our science and instruments in space, optimizing our process for collecting data and providing a benchmark for future missions,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The data collected in flight sets the stage for understanding how some of our instruments may behave in the harsh environment of space when some of the duplicates fly on future CLPS flights.”

FMI: www.nasa.gov