Final preparations are underway at Cape Canaveral ahead of Monday's planned launch of the first lander to the moon in more than half a century since the historic Apollo mission.
of guardian report Last minute setbacks aside, Hayabusa Mission 1The animal, named after the fastest animal on Earth, will roar into the sky early Monday morning.
Two private companies are behind efforts to get the U.S. back into the deep space game, all part of a NASA-backed effort to begin private lunar deliveries, the space agency said, according to the Associated Press. The focus is on getting astronauts back into space. report.
“These are the scouts going to the moon before us,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
Pittsburgh's Astrobotic Technology Inc. is among the first to move, with plans to launch its lander on Monday aboard its newest rocket, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan.
Peregrine is a small-sized lunar lander. It is poised to perform one of the first commercial missions to the moon and become one of the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo program. (Astro robot technology)
Houston's Intuitive Machines is aiming to launch a lander in mid-February, skipping a flight with SpaceX.
The United States has not landed on the moon since Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt, the last of 12 moon walkers, explored the gray, dusty surface in December 1972. Haven't tried.
Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton promised: “It's going to be a wild, wild ride.”
His counterpart at Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus, said the space race is “more about geopolitics, where China is going, where the rest of the world is going.”
However, “I definitely want to be number one.''
