Astrobiotic thinks it knows what caused the fuel leak that doomed the first US moon mission since Apollo

• Astrobotic said Tuesday it may have figured out what caused its lander to fail.
• The company sent a lander into space on Monday with hopes of reaching the moon.
• But a fuel leak shortly after launch foiled the attempt, dashing hopes of a soft landing.

Astrobotic has a theory for what may have caused its lander to fail on its mission to the moon.

The firm on Monday launched a lander into space, with the aim of it being the first American spacecraft to soft land on the moon since the Apollo era.

But its hopes were quickly dashed after a fuel leak caused a failure in the spacecraft's propellant system.

The company on Tuesday posted on X that it may have identified the cause for the failure: a valve that connects two tanks inside the lander.

The valve, it said, likely failed to close as predicted after the launch, leaving pressurized helium contained in one tank to leak into a tank containing oxidizer, a chemical that helps ignite the spacecraft's fuel.

The helium may have put the oxidizer tank under too much pressure, causing it to ultimately burst, according to Astrobotic.

This hypothesis fits with the crew's remote observations of the probe, but a full analysis of the mishap will still be conducted alongside a panel of experts to formalize the report.

The company is still working to maintain the spacecraft's trajectory, using the spacecraft's thrusters to keep it pointed in the right direction, Astrobotic said on X Tuesday.

This is gobbling up the lander's fuel, and Astrobotic no longer expects to be able to do a soft landing on the moon. It does, however, hope to gather as much scientific information as it can while the spacecraft is still operational, Business Insider previously reported.

Astrobotic estimated on Tuesday afternoon that the craft could maintain its stability for at least another 40 hours.

If Astrobotic had been successful, it could also have been the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon.

Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission 1 is the first of a series of planned NASA-backed private launches aiming to bring lunar landers to the moon, the Planetary Society reported.

Another US firm, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, aims to send its own NASA-backed spacecraft, Nova-C, toward the moon in mid-February.

NASA-funded competitor, Firefly, is also due to launch its Blue Ghost lander this year.