Shortly after launch, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander experienced a failure in the propulsion system, causing a critical loss of propellent. Astrobotic announced due to the failure, Peregrine will not achieve a soft lunar landing for this mission. Efforts by the Astrobotic team have recovered the spacecraft and allowed Peregrine to remain operationally stable collecting data about the interplanetary environment.
The Peregrine Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS) team, operating from the US and Europe, successfully turned the instrument on for the first time in space and verified it is working as intended.
Launch is a stressful time for the delicate parts of scientific payloads, so understanding that PITMS survived launch and is ready to operate is a big milestone. The team have also been learning more about the current constraints of the spacecraft operation and writing procedures that can be used to collect science data.
The team is looking forward to collecting mass spectra to characterise the instrument and spacecraft environment. PITMS is a partnership between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, The Open University (OU), RAL Space, and the European Space Agency (ESA). NASA is providing PITMS via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The UK members of the PITMS team from The Open University and RAL Space, have been fully immersed in the efforts to maximise the returns from the mission since the anomaly was first reported in the hours after the successful launch.
Dr Simeon Barber of The Open University, said:
“I am so grateful to colleagues at The Open University and RAL Space who have dropped everything in their work and personal lives in the race against time to get the very best from the PITMS instrument in these challenging circumstances.
“We are hugely encouraged that the instrument including the UK-led sensor and electronics are performing well in our post-launch check-out tests, and we look forward to getting the instrument fully operational and taking measurements.”
He added:
“I also wish to acknowledge the fantastic response that we have received from the UK media and public. Since the anomaly arose we have, of course, had to focus 100% on the immediate work to be done to secure the instrument and support the wider mission team. We look forward to being able to provide a fuller update in the coming days.”
For the Astrobotic press release, see: https://www.astrobotic.com/update-12-for-peregrine-mission-one/
For the related NASA press release: https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2024/01/11/nasa-science-data-collection-ongoing-aboard-peregrine-mission-one
