From the news coverage available on that day, and the graphic provided by Space.com, it looked like the spacecraft had been flung into space uncontrollably. In point of fact, it had its own on-board propellant, and despite a leak, was able to change its trajectory. Six days into its planned journey, mission control decided to direct the Peregrine spacecraft to burn up in Earth's atmosphere to avoid the creation of space debris in a sensitive orbital space. (Wikipedia) See the previous #instapoetrygram in this series, and its accompanying graphic. Image-top, a 3-line miniature poem, dated early January 2024, with author's name above, accompanied by image-below, an illustration from a news story, also from early January 2024, about an ill-fated lunar exploration journey, with a graphic showing the trajectory of the Peregrine Lander (intended as a Lunar Module), up to 'End of Mission' (labelled in the image). The trajectory describes an arabesque in space. The launch of the Vulcan Centaur spacecraft was a success (depicted in the graphic, including labels for various stages of the launch) as was the second-stage "trans-lunar injection" (TLI), but the Peregrine module failed its space maneuvers, under its own power, shortly after it began its planned 46-day journey to the moon. Img-bottom-left, the logo for Space.com (author of the graphic used). No copyright infringement intended. Fair use only.
An #instapoetrygram written as the craft was still outbound, and looked to be another piece of #spacejunk (The de-orbiting option came later.)
#haiku #SpaceOpera #NightskyPoets #DarkPoetry #SciFaiku
#PeregrineFAIL
#AdAstraAbyssosQue
#InspiredByCircumstance qv. une pièce de circonstance
#writesky
