First U.S. Private Moon Landing Fails

First U.S. Private Moon Landing Fails

United Launch Alliance Vulcan] launch vehicle lifts off with Peregrine lunar lander, Kennedy Space Center On January 8, Aerospace Robotics announced that Peregrine had suffered a critical fuel leak failure about seven hours after launch, and that it was expected to lose control of its flight attitude and eventually lose power as its solar cells ran out of energy within 40 hours. This means that the first U.S. launch of a privately owned lunar lander will end in failure. [Yuji] carried five scientific instrument payloads from NASA, and Aerospace Robotics had a $108 million contract with NASA for the mission.