2024-02-15 06:32:16
Recently, an attempt at a commercial moon landing failed. Another company wants to try it on Wednesday.
The moon is a sought-after destination these days – but no company has yet achieved the first commercial landing on Earth’s satellite. The next attempt is scheduled to start on Wednesday (from 6:57 a.m. CET): Then the US company Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, Texas, wants to send the “Nova-C” lander to the moon.
The launch is scheduled to take place from the Cape Canaveral spaceport using a “Falcon 9” rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX. Intuitive Machines hopes to land on the moon on February 22nd. It would be the first – albeit unmanned – US moon landing since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago and the first commercial landing on the Earth’s satellite in space history.
Art by Jeff Koons on board the lander
The “Nova-C” lander, nicknamed “Odysseus”, 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 occupied a large part of it with research equipment and other things, while commercial companies have secured the rest for their projects.
Artist Jeff Koons would like to send along 125 miniature stainless steel sculptures housed in a large cube. They are associated with people who have achieved significant achievements in history. “Odysseus” is expected to land in the southern region of the moon in a crater called “Malapert A”. After a possible successful touchdown, the lander would be operational for approximately seven days, according to its manufacturers.
Moon landings are very difficult
NASA works with private space companies
The upcoming test 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 with them.
A total of around 2.6 billion dollars (around 2.4 billion euros) is budgeted for the CLPS program by 2028. Intuitive Machines will receive around $77 million for the now planned experiment. The company was founded in 2013 by, among others, the US-Iranian entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, who is also behind the company Axiom Space, which has just sent astronauts to the International Space Station again on a commercial mission.
NASA wants to learn from experiences for its own lunar program
Astrobotic’s “Peregrine” capsule was also part of the CLPS program. “Every success and every setback are opportunities to learn and grow,” said NASA manager Joel Kearns, commenting on the failed landing.
However, NASA had to postpone the manned lunar orbit “Artemis 2”, which was actually planned for November 2024, to September 2025 due to problems with the rocket and spacecraft, and the planned manned lunar landing “Artemis 3” to September 2026. There is competition from China, which will do so by 2030 wants to put people on the moon.