A US company’s selenization module, which suffered a fuel leak, is now on its way to Earth and is likely to burn up in the atmosphere, startup Astrobotic announced, AFP reported on Sunday.

The company has regularly released updates on the status of the Peregrine satellite since its launch on January 8 aboard the new Vulcan Centaur rocket from the ULA group of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Shortly after separation from the rocket, the module suffered an explosion on board, and it soon became clear that it would not be able to make a controlled landing on the Moon as originally planned due to a fuel leak.

However, the Astrobotic team managed to launch the science experiments they conducted on behalf of NASA and other space agencies and collect flight data.

“It will probably burn up in the atmosphere”

“Our latest assessment shows that the spacecraft is headed for Earth, where it will likely burn up in the atmosphere,” the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based company announced on the X social network on Saturday.

“The team is currently evaluating possible options and we will let you know as soon as possible,” the company said.

The robot has been in space for more than five days and is currently at a distance of 390 thousand kilometers from our planet, Astrobotic added.

In addition to scientific equipment, the spacecraft carried goods belonging to Astrobotic’s private clients, including a can of energy drink, physical bitcoin, ash, and human and animal DNA.

It was also supposed to deliver $108 million worth of scientific equipment to the moon for NASA.

Only a few countries have successfully sent vehicles to the moon

To date, only the United States, the former Soviet Union, China and India have managed to successfully place spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. Of them, only the United States managed to send people to the moon.

In recent years, private Israeli and Japanese companies have tried to place rovers on the moon, but their missions have ended in crashes of the vehicles sent into space.

Despite this setback, NASA officials said they intend to continue to increase the number of attempts to increase the chances of success. The next mission will be Intuitive Machines in February.

For its part, Astrobotic will have another chance in November with the Griffin module, which will carry NASA’s VIPER spacecraft to the Moon’s South Pole. (Agerpress)