The US Moon Lander May Be Doomed, but It Hasn’t Quit Doing Science

The doomed U.S. moon lander Peregrine is not going to achieve a soft landing on the moon — but thanks to some remarkable feats of engineering, it's far from dead. In fact, its doing science.

Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic has been keeping us abreast of Peregrine's state in space after a faulty valve caused a "critical" propellant leak that quickly dashed all hope of it landing as planned on the moon's surface. But while it may not be a lander after all, it is enjoying a new, albeit imperiled, life as a spacecraft in orbit.

On Thursday, four days after it sprung a leak, Astrobotic said Peregrine had powered up 10 of the 15 science payloads aboard, including five NASA scientific instruments designed to measure conditions around and on the moon that will ultimately help inform future astronaut missions to our nearest neighbor.

It also carries a hoard of tiny robots from the Mexican Space Agency, a rover designed at Carnegie Mellon University and a German radiation detector.

Of the 10 working payloads, nine are designed to relay data back to Earth. Astrobotic said that while a soft landing on the moon is impossible, they hope to continue expanding Peregrine’s lifespan in order to collect as much scientific data as possible. So far, it has made it days beyond the initial prognosis given on Monday, when it was predicted to run out of fuel by Thursday if not before. On Friday, the Peregrine team said there is "growing optimism that Peregrine could survive much longer than the current estimate."

While the instruments aboard were designed primarily to collect valuable insight into conditions on the moon’s surface, NASA said in a blog post that they’re still getting useful information about radiation levels, cosmic ray activity and space weather between Earth and the moon. Peregrine would have been the first commercial mission to land on the moon, and is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

“Measurements and operations of the NASA-provided science instruments on board will provide valuable experience, technical knowledge, and scientific data to future CLPS lunar deliveries,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The lander is currently more than 225,000 miles from Earth, which is about 94% of the distance between our planet and the moon. But the moon is not there to greet it. Peregrine's flight path involves sending it out to lunar distance and then looping around Earth before slingshotting back out to meet moon — a journey that would take more than two weeks.

With the loss of propellant, it’s unclear just how far into its journey Peregrine will go. But its survival so far has surpassed expectations.