First commercial moon landing remains elusive after spacecraft suffers 'critical loss' of fuel

Astrobotic Technology, the company behind the lunar lander attempting the first US return to the moon, officially conceded it would not reach its ultimate goal.

Late Monday, the Pittsburgh-based firm released a statement, saying an ongoing propellant leak was causing the Peregrine lander’s Altitude Control System thrusters to “operate well beyond their expected life cycles.”

The company added the lander would only be capable of operating 40 more hours at most.

“At this time, the goal is to get the Peregrine as close to lunar distance as we can before it loses its ability to maintain its sun-pointing position and subsequently loses power,” the company said.

The historic attempt to return to the lunar surface appeared to be off to a successful start on Monday after it lifted off at 2:18 a.m. ET aboard the Vulcan Centaur rocket developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Boeing (BA).

The launch at Cape Canaveral, Fla., marked the inaugural voyage for the Vulcan Centaur and a win for United Launch Alliance, which aims to rival Elon Musk's SpaceX in bringing payloads to space.

But Astrobotic’s lunar lander hit a major snag hours later after it suffered a problem with its propulsion system.

In a statement, the company said the system failure was “causing a critical loss of propellant” that prevented the spacecraft from pointing towards the sun, a function critical to generating solar energy to power the lunar lander.

On Monday afternoon, Astrobotic shared the first image captured by the Peregrine in space, saying the spacecraft’s battery had been fully charged. The company added it would use the Peregrine’s existing power to “perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible.”

The company worked to assess its options while attempting to stabilize the issue throughout the day, but it ultimately concluded that the leak was too significant.

The incident marks a major setback for the US’s attempt to return to the moon, more than 50 years after the Apollo mission. Astrobotic was vying to become the first commercial space company to land an aircraft on the surface of the moon, with a potential moon landing slated for Feb. 23.

“It took a while for technology to advance to the point where we could affordably, routinely, regularly get to the surface of the moon,” CEO John Thornton said in an interview with Yahoo Finance ahead of the launch. “The stars have aligned for the moon, if you will.”

Thornton and his team placed their first bet on the Peregrine lunar lander, a small-class spacecraft developed inside its 47,000-square-foot facility, though Astrobotic touted it had ambitions beyond a lunar landing, including building out infrastructure in anticipation of astronauts and space tourists eventually spending longer periods there.

“To crack the nut of the moon, we need the infrastructure and resources to begin to start to work,” Thornton said. “The more we can remove our tether of reliance on earth’s resources and we travel into space, the more we become true space explorers and ultimately space settlers.”

A successful landing by the Peregrine would have marked a major milestone in the private space race that has spawned a $470 billion industry globally.

While early Apollo missions were driven by government agencies like NASA, the rapid growth in private space companies has led to a surge in new missions stemming from private-public partnerships, focused on scientific research and space exploration. Musk’s SpaceX alone has operated eight manned space flights to the International Space Station in partnership with NASA.

Yet, commercial success on the moon has remained elusive. An attempt by Japan’s ispace to land the first commercial lander on the lunar surface fell short in 2023 when its Hakuto-R lunar lander miscalculated the altitude and crashed.

Astrobotic said it secured multiple contracts with NASA valued at roughly $450 million in the lead-up to the launch. For the Peregrine mission alone, NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million to send research instruments to the moon as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, NASA said it was working with Astrobotic to better understand the propulsion issue. The space agency reaffirmed its support for Astrobotic, acknowledging the challenges that space missions present.

But Thornton hinted at potential ramifications of a failed mission earlier this year, telling CNN that failure to land on the moon would have “some impact” on the company’s “ability to secure additional missions in the future.”

“It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the business, but it would certainly be challenging,” he said.

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