Shamelessly plugging my own question here.

Astrobotic says its likekly to burn up in Earths atmosphere.

F

@Joshua F indeed

Here's a (admittedly secondary) source: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/14/1224723508/peregrine-moon-lander-heads-back-toward-earth-and-should-burn-up-in-the-atmosphe

@chrisjbillington What do you people know that I don't???

@Pykess nothing I think! We see tweets and try to guess how likely they are to be accurate and whether things will change further. Looks like I was wrong about the latest!

@Mqrius ahahahaha

I'm currently expecting to resolve this once we have official confirmation from Astrobotic that they've ceased operations and I find a trajectory estimate. I'll look for one after they cease operations. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do if I can't find a good source for the trajectory, but I expect I'll be able to.

This may resolve before the current close date; I'll extend the close date as needed until it can resolve.

Some sorts of prop / guidance failures might leave them short on propellant but still able to enter orbit. Others, like complete loss of a thruster or a gross leak, might mean they can't do any more significant maneuvers.

Im curious as to what happens if it indeed is a complete loss of propellant. Will it remain in Earth orbit?

@ScipioFabius I don't have details about their specific trajectory. It's on some sort of Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) trajectory. Those are usually not escape trajectories and usually the trajectory with no further maneuvers doesn't turn into one with the Lunar flyby, but there are a bunch of options available and some result in a Heliocentric orbit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-lunar_injection

I would be very surprised if it gets a "free" entry into Lunar orbit without a maneuver. I've not heard any suggestions that this trajectory is one that would do that.

@EvanDaniel I guess it depends on how the initial burn went, and as I understand that was ok? If that went well and they have enough propellant, it could be possible to do a decelerating burn to enter a highly eliptical Lunar orbit, as per plan. But damn, a heliocentric orbit would be even more interesting.

@ScipioFabius The burn to get to the TLI trajectory was all done by Centaur; I don't think they've done maneuvers other than orient / pointing. I think they need a propulsion system working better than it currently looks like it is, and they need it to still be that way in a while -- their low-energy slow transfer orbit needs a burn at apogee, well past the Moon, as I understand it, then another (multiples?) as it gets close to the Moon.

@EvanDaniel right, makes sense that TLI was done by Vulcan Centaur.

Looking at this booklet it looks like (page 16) the propellant is scattered across 2 pairs of 2 tanks, so if it is not all one system but 2 subsystems and the propellant can be routed to all the thrusters, it could be possible to still reach the Lunar orbit. But its unclear to me either what exactly burns they had planned, but I think there was no mention of the apogee burn?