A spacecraft that was headed to the surface of the moon has ended up back at Earth instead, burning up in the planet’s atmosphere on Thursday afternoon.
But the spacecraft never got close to its landing destination on the near side of the moon.
The main payloads on the spacecraft were from NASA, part of an effort to put experiments on the moon at a lower cost by using commercial companies.
Astrobotic’s launch was the first in the program, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS.
NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million to transport five experiments.
Organizations:
Astrobotic Technology, Pittsburgh, NASA, Payload Services