It was meant to be the first US Moon lander to softly touch down on the lunar surface in over half a century. But shortly after launch, the lander dubbed Peregrine, built by Pittsburgh-based spaceflight company Astrobotic, suffered a "critical" failure, according to an update posted to X-formerly-Twitter, "causing a critical loss of propellant." As […]
There’s a lot riding on tonight’s scheduled launch of United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket, including what could be the first mission to put a commercially built lander safely on the moon. Liftoff will mark the first-ever space mission for the Vulcan rocket, and the first-ever use of BE-4 rocket engines built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture. Two BE-4 engines, fueled by liquefied natural gas, will lift the first-stage booster spaceward with an assist from two si
The first US lunar lander in decades rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for Nasa and other customers.
The suite of NASA payloads aboard Peregrine One will aim to locate water molecules on the Moon, measure radiation and gases around the lander, and evaluate the lunar exosphere (the thin layer of gases on the Moon’s surface).