Another US company attempts first private moon landing
Published: Saturday, Feb 10th 2024, 11:50
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The moon is a coveted destination these days - but no company has yet managed a first commercial landing on the Earth's satellite. The next attempt is due to start on Wednesday (from 6.57 a.m. Swiss time).
This is when the US company Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, Texas, plans to send the "Nova-C" lander to the moon. However, the launch from the Cape Canaveral spaceport using a Falcon 9 rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk's space company SpaceX could still be delayed.
Intuitive Machines is hoping for a moon landing on February 22. It would be the first - albeit unmanned - US moon landing since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago and the first commercial landing on Earth's satellite in the history of space travel.
The "Nova-C" lander, nicknamed "Ulysses", is about the size of an old-fashioned red British telephone box, has aluminum legs, weighs around 700 kilograms and can carry around 130 kilograms of cargo. NASA has taken a large part of it with research equipment and other items, while the rest has been secured mainly by commercial companies for their projects.
Artist Koons wants to send cubes
The artist Jeff Koons would like to send 125 miniature sculptures made of stainless steel in a large cube. They are associated with people who have achieved significant feats in history. "Ulysses" is to land in the southern region of the moon in a crater called "Malapert A". According to its manufacturers, the lander would be operational for around seven days after a possible successful touchdown.
However, moon landings are considered highly technically demanding - and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned moon landings have already gone differently than hoped: the US company Astrobotic, based in Pittsburgh, sent the "Peregrine" capsule off in January. Shortly after the launch, there were problems due to a malfunction in the propulsion system. Although the engineers managed to stabilize the capsule for a time, the goal of landing on the moon had to be abandoned. A few days later, "Peregrine" burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.
Power outage for days
Shortly afterwards, the "SLIM" (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) lander from the Japanese space agency Jaxa touched down gently on the moon, but initially had problems with the power supply. Only after days of power failure was "SLIM" able to go into operation after all. This makes Japan the fifth country - after the USA, Russia, China and India - to have successfully landed unmanned on the moon.
In April last year, a Japanese company failed with a similar mission. Shortly after the planned landing time of "Hakuto-R" on the moon, the company ispace no longer received any data from the lander. The company assumes that it crashed onto the lunar surface in free fall. The reason given was an incorrect altitude calculation.
Billion-euro program
The upcoming experiment by Intuitive Machines is part of the "CLPS" (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program of the US space agency Nasa. With this program, Nasa wants to accumulate as much knowledge as possible on its own way back to the moon comparatively cheaply and efficiently by awarding contracts for moon landings to private companies and working together with them.
A total of around 2.6 billion dollars has been budgeted for the "CLPS" program until 2028. Intuitive Machines will receive around 77 million dollars for the planned test. The company was founded in 2013 by, among others, US-Iranian entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, who is also behind the company Axiom Space, which has just sent space travelers to the International Space Station on another commercial mission.
Nasa postpones its own mission
The "Peregrine" capsule from Astrobotic was also part of the "CLPS" program. "Every success and every setback is an opportunity to learn and grow," commented Nasa manager Joel Kearns on the failed landing.
NASA intends to use the experience gained with "CLPS" primarily for its own "Artemis" program, which aims to land humans on the moon for the first time in more than half a century - including the first non-white person and the first woman. The long-term goal of "Artemis" is to establish a permanent lunar base as a foundation for missions to Mars.
However, due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft, NASA has just had to postpone the manned moon orbit "Artemis 2", which was originally planned for November 2024, to September 2025, and the planned manned moon landing "Artemis 3" to September 2026. There is competitive pressure from China, which wants to put people on the moon by 2030.
©Keystone/SDA
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