this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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A US lunar lander has "no chance" of making a soft landing on the Moon due to a fuel leak, the company behind the mission says.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic said there was enough propellant to operate its Peregrine lander as a spacecraft.

The lander is expected to run out of fuel in about 40 hours, the firm said shortly after 17:00 GMT on Tuesday.

Peregrine ran into trouble almost as soon as it came off the top of its launch rocket on Monday.

"Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon," Astrobotic said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.

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[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Truly the innovation offered only by the private sector

[–] PoopingCough@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Private companies are allowed to have many failures before they succeed, unlike NASA who lose public goodwill and therefore potentially lose funding when they fail. SpaceX blew up a ton of rockets before they succeeded in having the first reusable rocket. It's much faster to iterate this way but also more expensive, so NASA cant really operate this way. Although on the other hand all the private aerospace companies seem to rely on government subsidies so it's pretty crappy we cant just fund NASA more.

[–] NMBA@mstdn.ca 1 points 10 months ago

@PoopingCough @SkybreakerEngineer
How about a different model where multiple governments fund a project so NASA is just one member, and give the project a name separate from nasa. Then when the natural fails occur they aren’t owned by nasa. Keeps the oligarchs out of the mix…

[–] wahming@monyet.cc 2 points 10 months ago

Points at SpaceX

[–] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

They didn't get the extended warranty.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Land it hard then 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] Basilisk@mtgzone.com 1 points 10 months ago

FR It ain't like anyone's gonna be popping by for a visit. Landed nicely on the surface or energetically buried 30m below the surface, the ashes are still on the moon.

[–] theodewere@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

a lunar orbital space station sure would be handy

[–] raktheundead@fedia.io -1 points 10 months ago

Shouldn't have stuck that stupid fucking Bitcoin shit inside.