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Private Peregrine moon lander will now touch down near 'geologic enigma'

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NASA has relocated a private American moon lander to a different landing site in order to maximise research returns ahead of crewed lunar missions.


The Peregrine lunar lander, manufactured by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, is now scheduled to land this year, together with a suite of NASA research equipment, in the Gruithuisen Domes, a bizarre section of the moon.Scientists are still puzzled as to how the moon created enough magma to form the Earth-like domes in the Ocean of Storms area, given that lunar geology lacks two critical ingredients: plate tectonics and significant water. The Peregrine landing in 2023 will be the first in this region, ahead of a NASA effort to explore the domes in 2026.


According to NASA officials, the successful completion of the uncrewed Artemis 1 moon mission last year, as well as preparations to name the Artemis 2 moon-circling crew this spring, gave the agency confidence that Peregrine should relocate to this region rather than its original target of Lacus Mortis, a basaltic flow plain.


"As NASA's Artemis activities matured," agency officials said in a brief statement (opens in new tab) on Thursday, "it became clear that the agency might maximise the scientific value of the NASA payloads if they were delivered to a different location" (Feb. 2). Officials from Astrobotic linked to the agency's Twitter tweet (opens in new tab) but provided no independent comments on the decision.


Peregrine will transport 11 payloads for NASA as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme. A suite of robotic landers, rovers, and other spacecraft are set to work with Artemis programme astronauts in the following years, with the Artemis 3 mission possibly landing near the moon's south pole as early as 2025.


Peregrine is almost ready to take off. Astrobotic concluded space qualification testing with the lander in late January and is currently awaiting confirmation from the launch provider, United Launch Alliance (ULA), before delivering the lander to Florida for mating with ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket.


Liftoff is slated for no earlier than the first quarter of 2023 from from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It will be the debut launch for Vulcan Centaur and the beginning of an industry shift toward intensive moon exploration. To date, all successful moon landings have been led by governmental space agencies, not private companies. Peregrine also may not be first of the CLPS sojourns to arrive at the moon; Intuitive Machines plans to launch its Nova-C lander in the first quarter of 2023, for example. And another private mission is flying to the moon right now: The Hakuto-R lander, built by Tokyo-based company ispace, is scheduled to touch down in April. The spacecraft completed a deep-space maneuver (opens in new tab) on Thursday, putting it on track for landing. Hakuto-R's major payload is Rashid, a small rover provided by the United Arab Emirates' space agency.


Edited by Rohan : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohan-s22/


Credits : https://www.space.com/peregrine-moon-lander-new-touchdown-site


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