Thousands of kilometres from the Earth, the doomed Peregrine mission to the moon is speaking its last words back home – and it may be an Australian deep space outpost that records its final message.
On Tuesday Astrobotic, the US company behind the mission, revealed there was “no chance” that Peregrine 1 would fulfil its aim to be the first commercial space probe to make a soft landing on the moon. A critical fuel leak after Monday’s liftoff meant the probe would run out of propellant long before its planned 23 February touchdown in the Bay of Stickiness.
The spacecraft has enough fuel to keep manoeuvring until some time Friday, and its batteries are at full charge.
The company said its new goal is to “get Peregrine as close to lunar distance as we can before it loses the ability to maintain its sun-pointing position and subsequently loses power”.
The updated mission was to gather data from Peregrine 1 that may be useful for a future lunar landing trip, Astrobotic said.
Until its demise it will keep communicating with Earth via Nasa’s Deep Space Network: three satellite dishes based in California, Madrid and Canberra.
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in the Tidbinbilla valley plays an “absolutely vital” role in the renewed US push towards the moon and beyond, said Fred Watson, Australia’s astronomer-at-large, from the commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
Nestled between cattle and sheep properties and surrounded by wandering Australian wildlife including kangaroos, koalas, emus, wallabies and birds, the Nasa-funded space dishes are the missing link that ensure complete coverage of their missions, Watson said.
Nasa would be “out of touch for eight hours a day” otherwise.
“The idea of having three is that as the Earth rotates, there’s always an antenna pointing to a particular space. And so there is 24/7 coverage by having three deep space network stations,” Watson said.
“So Australia plays a role in many Nasa missions.”
It also means Australia is continuing its traditional connection to moon missions: the Australian Parkes radio telescope (located 300km north of Tidbinbilla) had the only dish capable in the world of broadcasting the 1969 Apollo 11 moonwalk, a link popularised in the hit 2000 Australian film The Dish.
Watson said despite Peregrine’s failure, Canberra will soon be tracking more moon missions.
The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex will be relied on to track another new rocket called Vulcan launched by the United Launch Alliance and the SpaceX Falcon 9.
And the Australian Space Agency is part of the Artemis Accords, the effort to return humans to the moon by 2025.
As lunar exploration evolves into the private sector Australia will continue to play a significant role taking missions into space, Watson said.
