Source: AFP
The first U.S. spacecraft to attempt a lunar landing in more than half a century is poised to blast off early Monday — but this time, private industry is leading the charge.
A brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, is scheduled to lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Station at 2:18 a.m. (7:18 GMT) for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander. The weather so far looks favorable.
If all goes well, Peregrine will touch a mid-latitude region of the Moon called Sinus Viscositatis, or Viscous Gulf, on February 23.
“To lead America back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo is a significant honor,” Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said before the launch.
Until now, a soft landing on Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor has only been achieved by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was the first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put humans in space. Moon. .
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China has successfully landed three times in the past decade, while India was the latest to achieve the feat on its second attempt last year.
Now, the United States is turning to the commercial sector in an effort to stimulate a broader lunar economy and send its own hardware at a fraction of the cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
A difficult task
Source: AFP
The space agency has paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the project, while another contractor, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, wants to launch in February and land near the South Pole.
“We believe it will enable … more cost-effective and faster trips to the lunar surface to prepare for Artemis,” said NASA’s Joel Kearns, associate associate for exploration.
Artemis is NASA’s program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade in preparation for future missions to Mars.
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A controlled touchdown on the Moon is a difficult undertaking, with about half of all attempts ending in failure. In the absence of an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow the descent.
Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency, have all ended in failure — although the Japanese Space Agency is targeting mid-January for the landing of its SLIM lander that launched last September.
The fact that it’s the first launch for ULA’s Vulcan makes things more fraught with problems, although the company boasts a 100 percent success rate in its more than 150 previous launches.
ULA’s new rocket is designed to have reusable first-stage booster engines, which the company, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, expects will help it achieve cost savings.
Science instruments, human remains
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Source: AFP
On board Peregrine is a suite of science instruments that will investigate the radiation and composition of the surface, helping to pave the way for the return of the astronauts.
But it also contains more colorful cargo, including a shoebox-sized rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, a physical Bitcoin and, somewhat controversially, cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, the legendary science fiction writer and scientist. Arthur S. Clarke and a dog.
The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe, said sending them to the moon desecrates a body sacred to their culture and called for the payload to be removed. Although they were given one last meeting with the White House, NASA and other officials, their objections were ignored.
The upper stage of the Vulcan rocket, which will circle the Sun after deploying the craft, is meanwhile carrying more late Star Trek cast members, as well as hair samples of Presidents George Washington, Dwight D Eisenhower and John F Kennedy.
Source: AFP