Pittsburgh-built lunar lander to re-enter Earth Thursday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Astrobotic’s lunar lander is expected to re-enter Earth Thursday afternoon after nearly 10 days in space.

Astrobotic Technology’s lunar lander, known as Peregrine, lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the goal of reaching the moon.

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In the hours after the launch, Astrobotic said “an anomaly then occurred,” preventing the company from “achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation.” The company then said the issue could threaten the ability for Peregrine to soft-land on the moon and that its battery was reaching “operationally low levels.”

The spacecraft then went into an expected period of communication loss just after Astrobotic’s team reportedly “executed an improvised maneuver to reorient the solar panels toward the Sun.”

Thirty minutes after Peregrine’s communication was reestablished, the company said the failure was causing a critical loss of propellant.

>> Pittsburgh-built lunar lander may not make it to the moon

The next day, Astrobotic announced that Peregrine wouldn’t be able to reach the moon, but it did have enough propellant to operate as a spacecraft.

Now, Peregrine will be having a safe, controlled re-entry to Earth over a remote area of the South Pacific, Astrobotic said.

Astrobotic said a safe re-entry is their top priority, which requires a two-step maneuver to move the spacecraft and change its trajectory.

>> Pittsburgh built lunar lander on its way to the moon

First, there has to be a main engine burn. Because of the anomaly, the crew couldn’t operate the main engines normally, so they planned to fire all five of them with a series of short burns.

The crew then had to readjust Peregrine’s attitude so the force induced by the leaking propellant shifted the spacecraft towards the South Pacific Ocean.

The procedures the team executed were to minimize the risk of debris reaching land, Astrobotic said.

Peregrine is expected to re-enter Earth at around 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18.

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