After a nine-day adventure in space in which it failed to reach the moon, Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday, January 18, NASA has confirmed.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic said earlier in the week that the burn-up of the Peregrine spacecraft, which is about the size of a storage shed, posed no safety risks and will remove from orbit what would otherwise become a piece of hazardous space junk.
The mission was supposed to put the first U.S. lander on the moon since the final Apollo mission five decades ago, but a debilitating propellant leak that began shortly after launch on January 8 prevented the spacecraft from reaching the lunar surface.
