The first American attempt to reach the moon in half a century ended in failure on Friday (19th) as the Peregrine Moon Lander crashed into the Pacific Ocean after burning up in the earth’s atmosphere, foreign media said.
Peregrine was launched 10 days ago on January 8, but the mission was immediately thrown into doubt due to a fuel leak. The private company that launched the mission, Astrobiotic Technology, attempted for days to have the craft propel itself toward the moon, but failed, and ultimately it crashed back to Earth due east of Australia.
It would have been the first U.S. lander on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, which was also the last manned mission. Since then, the only countries that have landed spacecraft on the moon have been the Soviet Union, China and India, all of them unmanned.
Only astronauts from the US have ever walked on the moon, a total of 12. Of them, only four remain alive today, and are between the ages of 88 and 93. Neil Armstrong, who died in 2012, was the first on the moon in 1969. The second, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, is now 93 years old. The last astronauts on the moon were Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmit of Apollo 17 in 1972.
A Japanese spacecraft is attempting to become the first privately owned spacecraft to land on the moon, when it tries to land early Saturday morning (20th). Attempts by an Israeli company in 2019 and a Japanese company in 2023, ended in failure as both craft crashed on the surface of the moon.
(CNN)
