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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is gearing up to make history next month as it prepares to launch the first American lunar lander in five decades. 21st-century NASA is different from the agency of the Apollo era since it has outsourced several crucial projects to the corporate sector. Among these is the Peregrine lunar lander, developed by Astrobotic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Peregrine is slated to fly on the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) brand-new Vulcan rocket on December 24th, and NASA officials shared details about the plan during a press teleconference earlier today.
Onboard the lander will be several payloads that are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which will see several flights in 2024 as NASA’s corporate partners speed up their launches before astronauts part of the Artemis 2 missions make their maiden lunar flight in the same year.
NASA Gears Up To Fly Laser Location Marker To The Moon On Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lander
The upcoming mission marks the continuation of NASA’s Artemis program that kicked off last year with the launch of the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft. The Peregrine lander will be the first American lander to attempt to land on the Moon, making Astrobotic the first U.S. company to make this attempt.
Astrobotic’s C.E.O. John Thorton attended the NASA teleconference earlier today, where he shared that the firm is looking forward to its maiden lunar lander flight. He outlined that Astrobotic has worked with firms such as Japan’s iSpace to ensure a successful lunar landing. iSpace tried to land its Hakuto spacecraft on the Moon earlier this year but failed in the last moments as it lost contact.
Mr. Thorton added that Peregrine will bring seven countries to the lunar surface, out of which six have never touched down on the Moon. Astrobotic’s lander will fly 20 payloads, several of which belong to NASA’s different research and space flight centers spread all over America.
Among the several payloads that will fly on the Peregrine are two that NASA will use to measure water on the Moon and help future spacecraft land on the lunar surface. The former is what NASA calls Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS). This device will measure water, carbon dioxide and methane on and below the lunar surface by shining light and observing what is reflected back.
The latter is called the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) and it will reflect laser light that spacecraft might throw at it while orbiting the Moon. According to NASA, the LRA will be a permanent location marker on the Moon and work with any spacecraft that might be in its range for decades.
Regarding the mission profile, the Vulcan will take off roughly two hours after midnight on December 24th. The lander will be sent to the point where it can be injected into the trajectory to place it on the Moon’s path. According to Thorton, this will be roughly an hour after launch, and it will see the lander fire up all its engines together for the first time. Astrobotic might have to correct the lander’s trajectory. Once it gets close to the Moon a couple of days later, Peregrine will descend from a high (roughly 9,000 to 500 kilometers) to medium orbit (750 to 500 kilometers) before waiting for the right lighting for the final portion of its journey.
Since this requires waiting for the Moon to rotate, the lander will spend quite some time in a medium orbit before descending to a 100-kilometer orbit and then making a landing attempt on January 25th, explained the Astrobotic chief. If the landing is successful, then the payloads will be powered up.