Tracking Peregrine Spacecraft Hurdling Towards Earth
Jan. 18, 2024
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At the time of observations (5 am MST on Jan. 18), the Peregrine spacecraft was 107,000 km (~66K miles) from the Earth. The video was created using images where the sensor was tracking on the spacecraft (white moving dot), so stars appear as dashed lines.
Video by University of Arizona Space4 Center director and LPL professor Vishnu Reddy shows the uncrewed Peregrine Lunar Lander (white dot), which is on course to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere this afternoon after a fuel leak forced the mission to halt. Reddy has been tracking the spacecraft since its Jan. 8 launch. At the time of observations (5 am MST, Jan. 18), it was 66K miles from Earth. The dashed lines are stars.
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