2024-02-16 11:45:38
The planned launch of an American private apparatus to the moon has been canceled due to fuel problems, DPA reported.
The Nova-C module, built by Texas-based spaceflight company Intuitive Machines, was scheduled to launch earlier today on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center ” in Florida.
Less than two hours before launch, however, SpaceX posted a message on the X social network (until recently known as Twitter) that the launch was aborted due to a problem with the temperature of the methane fuel on the descent module.
The next launch window is no earlier than Thursday, February 15, at 06:05 GMT (08:05 BST).
This happens a month after another American spacecraft – “Peregrine” – failed to land due to a fuel leak, DPA recalls.
The failure of the US space company Astrobotic’s mission was the third in which a private company failed to make a soft landing on the lunar surface.
An Israeli company’s Beresheet lander crashed during descent in 2019, and the Japanese Hakuto-R M1 module was destroyed during a landing attempt in April last year.
If successful, the mission by Intuitive Machines and SpaceX will be the first landing of a US spacecraft on the moon since the end of the Apollo program more than 50 years ago, and the first successful landing on the lunar surface by a private company .
The “Nova-C” lunar lander will transport to the moon scientific instruments of NASA, which has signed a contract worth more than 100 million US dollars with “Intuitive Machines”, writes BTA.
The instruments are intended to provide a better understanding of the lunar environment to help the US space agency prepare for the return of astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite, which it plans with its Artemis program.