Peregrine

Mission specifications

Operator

Astrobotic

Prime contractor

Astrobotic

Launch

2024-01-08

Landing site

Sinus Viscositatis (planned; never reached)

Customer

NASA-CLPS

Payload

20 payloads from 7 nationsas of 2024-01-08^[1]5 NASA payloads + commercial + sovereign + private memorials

Contract value

$108Mas of 2024-01-08^[2]Initial 2019 CLPS award $79.5M; grew via modifications

Key findings

• 1.Launched 8 January 2024 as the primary payload on the maiden flight of ULA's Vulcan Centaur, which itself performed nominally and placed the lander on a lunar-injection trajectory.
• 2.Suffered a propulsion failure shortly after separation: a helium pressurization valve opened but failed to reseal, over-pressurizing and rupturing the oxidizer tank and causing a propellant leak that made a soft landing impossible.
• 3.Never reached the Moon — the planned Sinus Viscositatis landing was abandoned — but the crippled lander was stabilized long enough to keep four NASA instruments (NSS, LETS, PITMS, NIRVSS) powered on in cislunar space.
• 4.Those instruments returned usable data on the deep-space radiation environment and on volatiles near the spacecraft, giving NASA in-flight validation of the payloads even without a surface operation.
• 5.After about ten days, controllers commanded a controlled re-entry to avoid leaving debris in space; the lander burned up over the South Pacific on 18 January 2024.

Mission outcome

Peregrine Mission One was Astrobotic's first lunar-lander attempt and the first launch under NASA's CLPS initiative, carrying 20 payloads from seven nations. Hours after riding Vulcan Centaur's debut flight to a lunar-transfer orbit, a helium valve that failed to reseal over-pressurized and ruptured the oxidizer tank, ending any chance of a Moon landing. Astrobotic kept the spacecraft stable enough for four NASA instruments to gather radiation and volatile data in cislunar space, then commanded a safe, controlled destructive re-entry over the South Pacific on 18 January 2024 — a failed landing that still yielded engineering and science lessons for the commercial lunar program.