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A new rocket is aloft, carrying what could be the first commercial lander to touch the moon – and the first lunar landing mission to launch from the United States since 1972.
The Vulcan Centaur rocket, a previously unflown model developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture with Boeing and Lockheed Martin, blasted off at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:18 a.m. ET Monday. The launch vehicle soared through space for nearly an hour, consuming its fuel as it ripped away from Earth’s gravity and launched the lunar lander, known as Peregrine, on its way to the moon.
Just after 3 a.m. ET, the Peregrine spacecraft separated from the rocket and began its slow journey to the lunar surface. If everything goes according to plan, the lander could touch down on the moon on February 23.
What’s on board
The Falcon lander – named after the falcon which is the world’s fastest bird – was developed by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic Technology under contract to NASA.
“It’s a dream … For the past 16 years we’ve been pushing for this moment today,” Constellation CEO John Thornton said during a webcast of the launch. “And along the way, we had a lot of tough challenges that we had to overcome and a lot of people doubted us along the way. But our team and the people who supported us believed in the mission, and they created this beautiful moment that we see today.”
The space agency paid Astrobotic $108 million to develop Hawk and fly NASA science experiments to the lunar surface.
But the space agency is just one customer among many for this mission.
Of the 20 payloads that Hawk will carry to the moon, five will be NASA science instruments. The other 15 come from a range of customers.
Some are scientific extras from nations like Mexico, while others include a robotics experiment from a private UK-based company and trinkets or mementos put together by German shipping company DHL.
Peregrine is also transporting human remains on behalf of two commercial space burial companies – Elysium Space and Celestis – a move that has sparked opposition from the Navajo Nation, the largest group of Native Americans in the United States. The group argues that allowing the remains to touch the surface of the moon would be against many indigenous cultures, who consider the moon sacred. Celestis offers to transport ashes to the moon for prices starting at more than $10,000, according to the company’s website.
The five NASA-sponsored experiments include two instruments to monitor the radiation environment, “which helps us better prepare for sending crewed missions back to the moon,” said Paul Niles, NASA project scientist for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, NASA’s arm that it provided funding for Hawk, during a briefing on Thursday. Other instruments will analyze the composition of the lunar soil, looking for water and hydroxyl molecules. NASA will also study the moon’s ultra-thin atmosphere.
Once on the lunar surface, the Falcon is expected to operate for up to 10 days before its landing site is plunged into darkness – making it too cold to continue.
Also on board the Vulcan Centaur rocket, packed separately from the Peregrine lander, was another payload from the space burial company Celestis.
The object, on a mission called the Enterprise Flight, contains 265 capsules with human remains as well as DNA samples from former US presidents John F. Kennedy, George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower.
The remains also include “the creator and several cast members of the original Trek star television series, as well as an Apollo-era astronaut, along with people from all walks of life, interests and professions,” according to the company’s website.
The Apollo astronaut whose remains are on board the Enterprise Flight is Philip Chapman, who was selected for the astronaut corps in 1967 but never flew into space. He died in 2021.
An Enterprise Flight payload is headed for deep space where it will spend eternity orbiting the sun.
New rocket
The excitement of a lunar landing attempt aside, the launch of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket was an event in itself.
The rocket is one of the most anticipated new vehicles to take flight in recent years. If the rocket’s mission is successful, it could be a game changer for ULA and the broader launch industry.
ULA was founded in 2006 in response to the US military’s need to keep Boeing’s Delta and Lockheed Martin’s Atlas rockets operational. But the launch industry looks a lot different today than it did nearly two decades ago, and in the meantime SpaceX has emerged as a dominant force undercutting ULA.
ULA and its CEO, Tory Bruno, envision a Vulcan Centaur to replace its Atlas and Delta rockets. Vulcan Centaur has already scheduled about 70 missions, according to Bruno.
ULA has an excellent launch record with almost no failed missions. Vulcan Centaur builds on the success of ULA’s Atlas rockets by using essentially the same upper stage—the part of the rocket that powers a spacecraft to orbital speeds after initial transfer.
But the first stage of the rocket, the lower part that gives it the initial burst of power from the launch pad, has undergone a major change.
Vulcan Centaur drove two side boosters as well as two US-made rocket engines – developed by the Jeff Bezos-funded company Blue Origin – at the bottom of its first stage booster, replacing the Russian-made engines that powered the rockets Atlas. ULA’s reliance on Russian engines has become politically popular as tensions between the United States and Russia have increased in recent years.
Vulcan Centaur’s debut was already overdue, although it is common in the aerospace industry for companies to blow past deadlines.
ULA was seriously delayed while waiting for Blue Origin’s new engines. And the Vulcan Centaur upper stage was accidentally destroyed on a test stand last year.
Despite those setbacks, Bruno said in November that Vulcan Centaur development was one of the “more orderly and well-executed development programs I’ve worked on in my long career in the aerospace industry.”
In the moments after liftoff, the rocket appeared to be performing as intended.
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