First US lunar lander in more than 50 years heads to the Moon with commercial deliveries

The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years headed for the Moon on Monday, launching private companies into a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other clients.

The Astrobotic Technology lander boarded a brand new rocket, the Vulcan from United Launch Alliance. The Vulcan streaked across Florida skies before dawn, setting the spacecraft on a circuitous path to the moon that is expected to culminate with a Feb. 23 landing attempt.

“So, so, so excited. We’re on our way to the moon!” said John Thornton, Managing Director of Astrobotic.

The Pittsburgh company aims to be the first private company to successfully land on the Moon, something only four countries have achieved. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly and could take it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct route.

“First to throw. First to land is TBD,” Thornton noted.

NASA gave millions to both companies to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants private landers to explore before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA technology and science experiments and odds and ends to other customers. Astrobotic contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million.

The last time the United States launched a moon landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the Moon, capping a era which remained the heyday of NASA.

The space agency’s new Artemis program, named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology, aims to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the coming years. The first will be a flyby of the Moon with four astronauts, perhaps before the end of the year.

The highlight of Monday’s moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from the Cape Canaveral space station. The 202-foot (61-meter) rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out with the company’s Delta IV. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, supplied the Vulcan’s two main engines.

ULA declared success once the lander broke free from the rocket’s upper stage, nearly an hour into the flight. “Yeah-hah!” » shouted general manager Tory Bruno. “I’m so thrilled, I can’t tell you how excited.”

The Soviet Union and the United States accumulated a series of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 1970s, before suspending their landings. China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year, Russian landers and a private Japanese company also hit the Moon. An Israeli nonprofit collapsed in 2019.

Next month, SpaceX will provide the elevator for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander’s more direct one-week route could see the two spacecraft attempt to land within days or even hours of each other.

The hour-long descent to the lunar surface – by far the biggest challenge – will be “exciting, nail-biting and terrifying all at once,” Thornton said.

Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic has launched its own cargo business, packing the 1.9-meter-tall Peregrine lander with everything from a shard of rock from Mount Everest to toy cars from Mexico that will catapult. on the lunar surface and navigate around the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The Navajo Nation recently requested that the launch be delayed due to human remains. saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans. Thornton said the December objections came too late, but promised to try to find “a good path” with the Navajo for future missions.

Celestis, one of the spaceflight commemoration companies that purchased space on the lander, said in a statement that no culture or religion owns the Moon and should not be able to veto a mission . Other remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was propelled into a perpetual orbit around the sun extending as far as Mars.

Freight rates for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds), not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that is not the question, according to Thornton.

“A lot of dreams and hopes rest on this,” he said.

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