WASHINGTON — Astrobotic’s first lunar lander is ready for a launch in early January that would set up a landing on the moon in late February.
The Pittsburgh-based company announced Dec. 19 that its Peregrine lunar lander has completed all its pre-launch integration activities, which include fueling the lander and mating it with the payload adapter for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. That, along with preparations for the rocket itself, set up a launch attempt as soon as Jan. 8 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Astrobotic had hoped to launch Peregrine this month, with a launch period of Dec. 24 to 26 enabling a Jan. 25 landing attempt. However, ULA postponed the launch to complete a wet dress rehearsal that was interrupted by problems with ground systems in early December. ULA said Dec. 14 that it completed the dress rehearsal and confirmed a Jan. 8 launch date.
Peregrine is carrying 20 commercial and government payloads, including five provided by NASA as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The non-NASA payloads range from a small lunar rover developed by Carnegie Mellon University and a set of even smaller rovers from the Mexican Space Agency to commemorative and memorial payloads from companies and organizations.
Five other NASA instruments originally manifested on Peregrine were taken off the lander earlier this year. Chris Culbert, NASA CLPS program manager, said at a Nov. 29 briefing that decision was linked to the performance of the lander and the descent engines available for it.
“Rather than delay this mission further to wait on additional engine development, we worked with Astrobotic to agree on getting the most important payloads delivered as early as possible,” he said. “We did jointly agree to demanifest a handful of payloads from the first mission to enable that first mission to be more likely to succeed.” Those payloads will be flown on later CLPS missions.
“If you’ve…
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