On Friday, officials confirmed that a moon mission by an American company ended in failure, resulting in a fiery crash into the South Pacific.

Astrobotic Technology announced that communication and tracking were lost when their lunar lander reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday. This occurred 10 days after its launch from Florida. CEO John Thornton stated that they received confirmation from U.S. Space Command on Friday that the spacecraft disintegrated during its last moments.

A leak of fuel shortly after launch prevented any possibility of landing on the moon.

Thornton expressed, “We just had an intense adventure. Unfortunately, it didn’t end as we had hoped and it was certainly difficult from the start.”

Following discussions with NASA and other government specialists, Astrobotic implemented measures to terminate its damaged lander in order to safeguard other spacecraft. The flight controllers at the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh briefly activated the engines, successfully positioning the lander for reentry despite limited fuel reserves.

Thornton announced that a panel will be assembled to investigate the cause of the malfunction. The engineers believe that a valve jammed in the propellant system led to the tank’s rupture.

After experiencing a successful launch, our team was hit with a devastating blow when the tank burst a few hours later, according to statements given to reporters.

The lander, measuring 6 feet (1.9 meters) in height, was named after the Peregrine falcon. It successfully reached the moon’s orbit, which is over 240,000 miles (390,000 kilometers) away, before turning around and returning to Earth.

The first American spacecraft to land on the moon in over 50 years was launched. The following one is scheduled to launch next month and is being created and managed by Intuitive Machines, based in Houston. NASA invested a significant amount of money into these two companies to transport their experiments to the moon, as part of their goal to commercialize lunar deliveries before sending astronauts.

Moments before the U.S. press conference on Friday, a lunar lander from Japan safely reached the moon’s surface. However, it was unable to generate necessary solar power. In the past, the U.S., Russia, China, and India have all achieved successful landings on the moon, with only the U.S. accomplishing manned missions.

but others were damaged or lost.

The Astrobotic lander transported a range of experiments, including five from NASA, as well as the remains and genetic material of 70 space fans, including the creator of “Star Trek”, Gene Roddenberry. The team was able to activate and gather data from some of the experiments, but unfortunately, some were harmed or unable to be retrieved.

The company is currently developing a larger lunar lander to transport NASA’s Viper rover to the moon within a year.

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The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group provides support to the Associated Press Health and Science Department. The AP is solely responsible for all of its content.

Source: wral.com