NASA Peregrine Science Moon Mission Team Battles Operating Anomaly - Astrobiotic

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Mission engineers are struggling to correct an anomaly in the orientation of NASA's unmanned robotic commercial Peregrine Moon lander after it separated from its booster, Astrobiotic announced in a press release on Monday.

"After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state," the space technology company said. "Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation."

The Astrobiotic operating team is responding in real time as the situation unfolds, the release added.

Earlier, "after successfully separating from United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began receiving telemetry via the NASA Deep Space Network," the release said.

The first certification flight (Cert-1) mission included two payloads: Astrobiotic's first Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One (PM1), as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science packages to the lunar surface and the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission Enterprise Flight, the release said.