Pittsburgh space tech firm Astrobotic is celebrating the successful first launch of their Peregrine lunar lander.
The vehicle is now headed for the moon after taking off from Cape Canaveral on the private United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket at 2:18 this morning. The purpose of the Peregrine lander is to deliver multiple public and private payloads to the lunar surface, including instruments from NASA and a robotic rover developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
The mission calls for Peregrine to complete an orbit that takes it around the moon and then back around the Earth before preparing to make an autonomous landing next month.
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