Although yesterday's launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket went well, there was an issue with the Peregrine lunar lander when it was deployed. Space.com reports:
Peregrine lifted off early Monday morning (Jan. 8) on the first-ever mission of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. The historic launch went well, but Peregrine ran into problems shortly after deploying from the rocket's Centaur upper stage.
The lander failed to orient itself properly to face the sun to charge its solar panels, an issue that Astrobotic thinks stemmed from an anomaly in Peregrine's propulsion system. That hypothesis was bolstered by the first image the lander snapped in space, which the company shared today via X (formerly known as Twitter).
"The camera utilized is mounted atop a payload deck and shows Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) in the foreground," Astrobotic wrote in the X post that featured the photo. "The disturbance of the MLI is the first visual clue that aligns with our telemetry data pointing to a propulsion system anomaly."
The article also adds:
There is some good news, however: The mission team has managed to get the lander's battery fully charged, "and we are using Peregrine's existing power to perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible," Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic wrote in that same X post.
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