At 2:18 a.m. Eastern time today, Astrobotic's "Peregrine 1 Mission" (PM1) lifted off from Launch Complex 41 of the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida aboard a ULA Vulcan rocket. This marked the beginning of the United States' second lunar landing mission in 52 years.
PM1's liftoff occurred without major delays or incidents under cloudy skies. One minute and 16 seconds after liftoff, the Vulcan/Centaur launch vehicle reached maximum dynamic pressure. At 1 minute and 50 seconds, the solid rocket booster separated from the Vulcan core stage. At 4 minutes and 59 seconds, the two liquid-fuel engines of the first stage shut down, and the second stage separated after 6 seconds.
Subsequently, the second stage ignites and performs two additional engine burns. After the Centaur stage was shut down, the Peregrine spacecraft separated after 50 minutes of flight.
The Centaur stage then ignited again, placing the spacecraft into heliocentric orbit, where it deployed Celestis Memorial Spaceflight's Enterprise Flight payload, which carried the ashes or DNA of many celebrities, including Gene and Majel Roddenberry, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley and James Doohan. The Peregrine also carried the remains or DNA of 66 other people as part of Celestis' Silent Flight to the lunar surface.
With the activation of the Lark lander system, communication with Astrobotic's mission control center was established. "Lark" begins a 17-19-day lunar orbit cruise phase, during which it will orbit the Earth once before entering a lunar transfer orbit.
Once in lunar orbit, Peregrine will perform a series of orbital maneuvers that will bring it closer to the lunar surface for up to 39 days before receiving permission to land at Sinus Viscositatis next to the Gruithuisen Domes on the northeastern edge of the moon's Procellarum sometime in February 2024. This is an area of particular interest to geologists, who hope these domes, formed from granite-like material, will reveal whether there is water beneath the moon's surface or water trapped in minerals.
There are also 20 payloads on board the Peregrine. Five of them are experimental devices sent by NASA as part of the Artemis program, and 15 are from other international organizations. One of them is the Iris Lunar Rover built at Carnegie Mellon University. This means that PM1 is not only the first U.S. lunar landing mission in more than half a century, but also the first to use a privately owned and operated spacecraft. It is also the first U.S. mission to carry a lunar robotic rover.