Peregrine (Moon Lander)

Model by Peregrine

Peregrine (also: Peregrine Lander ), English for peregrine falcon , is a type of lunar landing device made by the US space company Astrobotic Technology . Peregrine will be the company's first spacecraft to go into practical use. The first launch of a Peregrine lander is planned for mid-2021 with the first flight of the Vulcan launcher . Astrobotic is aiming for the first American moon landing since Apollo 17 (1972).

Peregrine is a pure lander , so it cannot take off again after landing on the moon or even return to earth. Its purpose is to bring payloads smoothly to the surface of the moon. After completing this task , he remains at the landing site .

history

Peregrine is a smaller version of the older Astrobotic Design Griffin (English for Cross announced) and was on 2 June 2016th In December 2016, Astrobotic postponed its originally announced start date to 2019, saying goodbye to the Google Lunar X-Prize , which ended in 2018.

In November 2018, Astrobotic qualified as one of nine companies that can submit offers to NASA for the transport of payloads to the moon as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services . In May 2019, Astrobotic won its first $ 80 million contract from NASA to deliver 14 payloads to the Lacus Mortis Plain . In total, orders for the transport of 28 payloads from eight different countries with Peregrine are said to have been received in June 2019.

commitment

Mission One
Mission goal	Soft landing on the moon with 14 payloads including several rovers
Manufacturer	Astrobotic Technology
Launcher	Vulcan
construction
Takeoff mass	1313 kg including fuel and payload
Course of the mission
Start date	June 2021 (planned)

The first mission for NASA is planned for June 2021 under the name Mission One (M1). Among other things, several moon rovers from different manufacturers are to be transported. A maximum of 90 kg payload is envisaged.

The rovers on board Mission One will also include the first “ cuberover ”, which is being developed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University . This is a concept for a standardized modular format to reduce costs, similar to the Cubesat concept for satellites. The first cuberover should have a mass of 33 kg and a height of 103 cm. It has four wheels and two high-resolution cameras; its maximum speed is 18 cm / s.

A library, which is etched in tiny microwriting on nickel alloy panes , is also said to be on board Mission One. It contains Wikipedia content as well as the Rosetta project from The Long Now Foundation . In addition, a space burial is planned on behalf of the company Elysium Space , which means that capsules with parts of the ashes of the cremated deceased will be on board.

The planned landing ellipse is 24 km × 6 km in size. After landing, Peregrine is said to be operational on the lunar surface for eight days (192 hours) before shutting down its systems.

The German shipping service provider DHL has been offering the MoonBox service since 2017 , which can be used to put small objects in capsules with a hexagonal base - there are different capsule sizes, the largest has a diameter of 2.54 cm and a height of 5.08 cm and costs 25,800 US dollars  Dollars - can send to the moon. The capsules are packed as a collective package in a moon pod ("moon container"), and this is then to be brought to the moon with a peregrine. The first transport was originally planned for 2019.

technology

Peregrine is about 2.5 m in diameter and about 1.9 m high. It should be able to bring up to 265 kg payload to the moon in later missions. For comparison: The larger Griffin model should be 4.5 m wide and be able to transport up to 400 kg to the surface of the moon.

The bus structure of Peregrine consists primarily of an aluminum alloy and can be customized for individual missions. Its propulsion system is a combination of five ISE-100 rocket engines from the manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne . These are based on the attitude control thrusters of missile defense systems . The drive system is used to bring the probe in the direction of the moon from close to the earth ( trans-lunar injection ), for course correction during the flight to the moon, for pivoting into a lunar orbit ( lunar orbit insertion ) and for soft landing on the moon. The fuel used is MON-25 / monomethylhydrazine , a hypergolic , two-component fuel. Twelve thrust nozzles of 45 Newtons each  , which are also operated with MON-25 / MMH, are used for position control.

The avionics on board the space probe carry out the entire navigation up to the landing on the moon. A Doppler lidar system helps the probe land on its four legs. The electrical systems are powered by a lithium-ion accumulator that is charged by solar cells made of GaInP / GaAs / Ge. The lander has cooling fins to dissipate waste heat and heat insulators, but it does not carry any heating elements. Therefore, the first Peregrine landers will probably not survive the cold 14-day lunar night. However, future missions could do this with appropriate adjustments.

To communicate with Earth, Peregrine uses different frequencies in the X-band in both directions of communication. After landing, a 2.4 GHz WLAN modem  enables wireless communication between the lander and rovers, which the lander places on the lunar surface.

Web links

• Peregrine Lander on the Astrobotic Technology website
• Cuberover - project website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Astrobotic Selects United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur Rocket to Launch its First Mission to the Moon. United Launch Alliance , August 19, 2019, accessed August 29, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Astrobotic unveils Peregrine lunar lander . Jeff Foust, Space News . 3rd June 2016.
3. ^ John Thornton: Graduating from the Google Lunar X Prize . Retrieved December 20, 2016.
4. ^ NASA Announces New Partnerships for Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery Services . NASA. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
5. ↑ Astrobotic Awarded $ 79.5 Million Contract to Deliver 14 NASA Payloads to the Moon. Astrobotic press release, May 31, 2019.
6. ^ Marcia Smith: NASA Signs Three Commercial Contracts for Lunar Payload Delivery Services. In: Spacepolicyonline.com. June 1, 2019, accessed August 24, 2019 . 
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Stephen Clark: Astrobotic lunar lander to launch on ULA's first Vulcan rocket. In: Spaceflight Now. August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 21, 2019 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Astrobotic Payload User Guide 2019 (PDF). Astrobotic Technologies , August 2019, accessed August 27, 2019.
9. ↑ Peregrine Lunar Lander Payload User's Guide Version 3.3 . Astrobotic, August 2019 (PDF; 5 MB).
10. ↑ Astrobotic Awarded $ 79.5 Million Contract to Deliver 14 NASA Payloads to the Moon. Astrobotic press release, May 31, 2019.
11. ↑ Cuberover project site , accessed on 20 December 2018th
12. ↑ Astrobotic wins NASA award to produce small lunar rover . Spaceflight Insider, March 18, 2018.
13. ^ Mike Wall: 'Lunar Library' Aims to Preserve Humanity's History On the Moon (Wikipedia, Too) . In: Space.com , May 16, 2018. 
14. ↑ Loren Grush: This nonprofit plans to send millions of Wikipedia pages to the Moon - printed on tiny metal sheets . In: The Verge , May 15, 2018. Retrieved May 16, 2018. 
15. ↑ Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander will be onboard a ULA launch vehicle. Elysium Space, July 26, 2017, accessed September 12, 2019 . 
16. ↑ Post wants to send parcels to the moon - ingenieur.de. In: ingenieur.de. ingenieur.de - job exchange and news portal for engineers, 2017, accessed on August 14, 2019 (German). 
17. ↑ Immortalize your keepsake on the moon. In: astrobotic.com. Retrieved August 14, 2019 . 
18. ↑ MoonBox: From 2019 DHL will also send your packages to the moon! In: mobilegeeks.de. 2017, accessed on August 14, 2019 (German). 
19. ↑ Griffin Lander . Astrobotic Technology. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
20. ↑ Astrobotic unveils Peregrine lunar lander - SpaceNews.com (en-US) . In: SpaceNews.com , June 3, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2017.