A US lunar lander has “no chance” of making a soft landing on the Moon due to a fuel leak, the company behind the mission says.
Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic said there was enough propellant to operate its Peregrine lander as a spacecraft.
The lander is expected to run out of fuel in about 40 hours, the firm said shortly after 17:00 GMT on Tuesday.
Peregrine ran into trouble almost as soon as it came off the top of its launch rocket on Monday.
“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the Moon,” Astrobotic said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Remember stuff like this when capitalists insist our species’ salvation is in growing/metastasizing our species on other worlds, instead of proving we can change our behaviors and practices to find homeostasis/equilibrium with the only world we evolved on that suits our biology first.
We haven’t even mastered traveling to our fucking moon.
You think we’re going to thrive on Mars or Titan’s hostile environments in anyone living’s lifetime? Why desperately attempt to spread when we can’t even yet care for one another or our COMMUNal home on the most human friendly rock we’re likely to ever encounter in our galaxy? This is the “Enter your First and Last name” part of the space faring species exam, and we’re failing spectacularly.
I’m all for us spreading to the stars… Once we’ve proven we can take care of this world and each other. If we can’t do it on this former paradise we’re reverse terraforming against ourselves, we’ll be slaughtered anywhere else in reach in short order.