CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — While China and India landed on the moon, Russia, Japan and Israel ended up on the moon’s garbage heap.
More than 50 years after the Apollo program ended, two private companies are trying to get America back in the game.
This is part of a NASA-backed effort to begin commercial lunar deliveries as NASA focuses on bringing astronauts home.
“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, planning to launch its lander on Monday aboard its newest rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. Houston’s Intuitive Machines is aiming to launch a lander in mid-February, skipping a flight with SpaceX.
Then there is Japan, which will attempt to make landfall within two weeks. Japan’s Space Agency’s lander, carrying two toy-sized probes, got a big head start by sharing a launch in September with an X-ray telescope that remained in orbit around Earth.
If successful, Japan will become the fifth country to successfully land on the moon. Russia and the United States did the same thing in the 1960s and 1970s. China has landed on the moon three times in the past decade, including on the far side, and plans to return to the far side later this year to bring back samples. And just last summer, India did it. The United States is the only country to have landed astronauts on the moon.
Landing without wrecking is no easy task. There is little atmosphere to slow down the spacecraft, and the parachute clearly does not work. This means the lander will have to use its thrusters to descend while navigating dangerous cliffs and craters.
iSpace, the billionaire Japanese company, had its lander collide with the moon in April last year, followed by a Russian crash landing in August. A few days later, India achieved a victory near the Antarctic region. An Israeli nonprofit also crashed into the moon in 2019.
The United States has not attempted a moon landing since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt (the last of 12 moon walkers) explored the gray, dusty surface in December 1972. Not yet. It was during the space race between Mars and the Moon that Mars beckoned and the Moon appeared in NASA’s rearview mirror. America and the Soviet Union were settled. The United States has introduced a few lunar satellites, but to date no controlled landers.
Astrobotic Machines and Intuitive Machines are not only trying to end America’s moon landing drought, they’re also vying for bragging rights as the first private companies to – gently – touch down on the moon’s surface.
Despite the slow start, Intuitive Machines has a faster, more direct shot and should land within a week of launch. It will take Astrobot two weeks just to reach the moon, and another month in lunar orbit before its attempted landing on February 23.
If a rocket is delayed and both missions are already stalled, one company could arrive first.
Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton promised: “It’s going to be a wild, wild ride.”
Steve Altemus, president of Intuitive Machines, said the space race is “more about geopolitics, where China is going and where the rest of the world is going.” However, “I definitely want to be number one.”
The two companies have been butting heads since 2019, when they each received nearly $80 million under a NASA program to develop delivery services to the moon. Currently, 14 companies have contracts with NASA.
Astrobotic’s four-legged, 6-foot-tall (1.9 meters) lander, named Peregrine after the fastest bird, the peregrine falcon, will carry 20 research packages to the moon for seven countries. This includes five for NASA and one the size of a shoebox. Carnegie Mellon University’s rover. Peregrine falcons aim for the sticky or sticky bays of the mid-latitudes. This bay is named after the ancient silica magma that formed the nearby Gruithuizendome.
Intuitive Machines’ six-legged, 14-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) lander, Nova C, will also carry five NASA experiments targeting the moon’s south pole region and lasting about two weeks. The company is aiming for a touchdown at 80 degrees south latitude. Artemus noted that it is well inside Antarctica on Earth and 10 degrees closer to the pole than India landed last summer.
Scientists believe that Antarctica’s permanently shadowed craters hold billions of pounds (kilograms) of frozen water that could be used to make drinking and rocket fuel. That’s why the first moon walkers from NASA’s Artemis mission (named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology) will land there. NASA still plans to launch in 2025, but the Comptroller’s Office believes it could be closer to 2027.
Astrobotic will carry NASA’s Viper water-seeking spacecraft to Antarctica on its second flight. And Intuitive Machines plans to return there on her second mission to provide NASA with an ice drill.
Landing near the moon’s south pole is especially dangerous.
“Antarctica and the mountainous regions are rocky, rugged, and full of craters, so it’s very difficult to find a well-lit place to land safely,” Altemus said. Please put it in the right place. ”
While Houston has long been associated with space, Pittsburgh is a newcomer. To commemorate the Steel City, Astrobotic’s lander features tokens from Kennywood Amusement Park, the winner of a public vote that beat the Steelers’ Terrible Towel waved at a football game, and Moon Township’s A Heinz pickle pin is delivered to the Moon Park soil.
The lander also carries the remains and DNA of 70 people, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. An additional 265 people will take part in the rocket’s upper stage, which will orbit the sun once it separates from the lander. These include the hair of his three original cast members from “Star Trek,” as well as his three U.S. presidents: George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy.
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