The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon on Monday, as private companies embark on a space race aimed at delivering to NASA and other customers.
Astrobotic Technology's lander rode on a state-of-the-art rocket, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan.
Vulcan will criss-cross the predawn skies over Florida, taking the spacecraft on a detour to the moon and ultimately attempting a landing on February 23.
The Pittsburgh company aims to become the first private company to successfully land on the moon, a feat only four countries have achieved.
But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, potentially taking a more direct route to the moon's surface.
“First is the launch. We're not sure if we're going to land first,” said Astrobotic CEO John Thornton.
NASA provided both companies with significant funding to build and fly their own lunar landers.
The space agency hopes the privately owned lander will scout the site before astronauts arrive, while also providing technical and scientific experiments for NASA and benefiting other customers. There is. Astrobotic's Peregrine lander contract: $108 million.
The last time the United States launched a moon landing mission was in December 1972.
Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt of Apollo 17 became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, ending an era at the top of NASA's orbit.
The space agency's new Artemis mission, named after Apollo's twin sister in Greek mythology, aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface within the next few years.
The first flight is scheduled to include four astronauts around the moon, likely by the end of the year.
Highlighting Monday's moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The 202-foot (61-meter) rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA's highly successful flagship Atlas V, which will be phased out along with the company's Delta IV. Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin provided his two main engines for Vulcan.
After a series of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union and the United States paused on touchdowns.
China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023.
However, last year, landers from private companies from Russia and Japan collided with the moon.
The Israeli nonprofit filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
Next month, SpaceX will provide lifts for the lander from Intuitive Machines. A more direct week-long route for the Nova-C lander could see both spacecraft attempt to land within days or even hours of each other.
Thornton said the hour-long descent to the moon's surface, the biggest challenge yet, “will be exciting, suspenseful and terrifying at the same time.”
In addition to flight experiments for NASA, Astrobotic has launched its own cargo transportation business, shipping its 6-foot-tall (1.9-meter-tall) Hayabusa lander with rock chips from Everest and toy-sized objects it catapults from Mexico. I packed everything up to my car. It will reach and cruise the moon's surface, collecting the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke.
The Navajo Nation recently asked for the launch to be postponed because of the human remains. He said it would be a “grave desecration” of the celestial bodies worshiped by Native Americans.
Thornton said the December challenge came too late, but promised to work to find a “good path forward” with the Navajo Nation for future missions.
Celestis, one of the spaceflight memorial companies that purchased space for the lander, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto the mission.
There will be more debris in the rocket's upper stage, and once released from the lander, it will orbit the sun indefinitely all the way to Mars.
Freight rates for Hayabusa range from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds), not enough for Astrobotic to break even.
But Thornton says that's not the point for this first flight.
“A lot of people's dreams and hopes rest on this,” he said.
