Everything about Astrobotic, the American company (sponsored by NASA) that launched the first private lander on the Moon
Peregrine took off towards the Moon, the first lander built by a private company, AstroboticTechnology. The mission launched as part of NASA's commercial lunar payload services initiative. Moon landing expected on February 23rd
NASA ready to return to the Moon thanks to the private Pittsburgh company Astrobotic.
The Peregrine lander built by Astrobotic took off today, on board which there are experiments from NASA, as part of the Artemis program for returning to the Moon, and seven countries. The Cert-1 mission then began, which for the first time intends to bring a vehicle built by a private company to the Moon.
The launch took place from platform 41 of the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral, the base of the United States Department of Defense, with the Vulcan rocket which is on its first flight. The rocket was also built by a private company, United Launch Alliance (Ula), a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The mission is proceeding regularly and the separation of the Centaur upper stage of the Vulcan rocket has occurred. Peregrine will take approximately 46 days to reach the lunar surface. ( To learn more about the episode of Spaziale, the Start Magazine podcast on NASA ready to return to the Moon with Peregrine ).
If successful, Peregrine would mark the first soft US moon landing since Apollo in 1972. It would also be the first successful commercial mission to the Moon: an attempt by Japan's iSpace last April failed when the lander crashed on the surface , highlights the Financial Times .
All the details.
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE MISSION
Peregrine is the landaer developed by the company Astrobotic Technology, which gave it the name of the fastest bird, the peregrine falcon, with the support of NASA which contributed with funding of 108 million dollars, which will also be used to carry out scientific experiments on the Moon on behalf of the US space agency, according to CNN .
So this mission is a private venture, but it's sponsored by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, a key part of the agency's efforts to return astronauts to the Moon. The initiative will allow NASA to contract with private companies to transport scientific instruments and other equipment to the lunar surface.
Once on the Moon, NASA instruments aboard Peregrine will study the lunar exosphere, the thermal properties of the lunar regolith, the abundance of hydrogen in the soil at the landing site, and conduct environmental radiation monitoring.
Among other things, NASA aims to monitor lunar radiation to "help prepare for future manned missions." In addition to the 5 NASA scientific instruments, the spacecraft carries 15 others from various private companies from Mexico, the United Kingdom and Germany (DHL). Once on the lunar surface, Peregrine is expected to be operational for about ten days before the landing site plunges into darkness, cooling and making further experiments impossible.
THE DEBUT OF THE VULCAN ROCKET
As already mentioned, this mission also represents “another first”: the debut of the Vulcan launcher. Almost 62 meters high and 5.4 meters in diameter, the rocket has two engines, called Be-4 and built by Blue Origin, and is fueled by liquid methane.
The launch of the Vulcan represents a novelty in the history of space missions: the company, founded in 2006 to keep both Boeing's Delta rockets and Lockheed Martin's Atlas rockets operational, today finds itself facing competition from the other large private company in the sector, Elon Musk's SpaceX. This flight is the first of two that will certify Vulcan for military payloads, with the second scheduled for April, reports the Financial Times . Vulcan has four more flights booked this year and a backlog of more than 70 scheduled flights. We hope to fly twice a month by the end of next year.
WHAT DOES THE AMERICAN ASTROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY THAT AIMS AT THE MOON DO
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US-based aerospace company aims to be the first private company to successfully land on the Moon, something only four countries have managed to achieve (US, Russia, China and lastly India) .
Founded in 2007, the privately held company is developing technology for the next phase of humanity's space exploration, particularly for missions to the moon and other planets.
Created by Carnegie Mellon University professor and robotics expert Red Whittaker and his associates, Astrobotic aims to help other developers take their technology into space.
John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said today's launch represents "the dawn of a new era" for space exploration.
The company has also received investments from the state of Pennsylvania: last November, Governor Josh Shapiro announced that his administration was investing more than $4 million “to support Astrobotic's work to build a space campus and make Pittsburgh a leader in the space growing space".
COLLABORATION WITH NASA
As Space.com recalled in 2022, NASA certainly has confidence in Astrobotic's commitment to space research. In 2008, the US space agency funded a conceptual study by the company and a year later awarded Astrobotic $795,000 to investigate lunar resource prospecting. In 2010, NASA signed several contracts with Astrobotic worth up to $30 million.
Since then collaborations with NASA have continued at a steady pace, leading up to Astrobotic's successful proposal for NASA Commercial Lunar Services to deliver science and technology payloads to the Moon. The FT also recalls that NASA initially paid 79 million dollars for Peregrine to travel on Vulcan, but the cost increased to 108 million dollars due to delays due to the pandemic and the decision to change the landing site, they said agency officials.
NON-SCIENTIFIC LOADS ON BOARD PEREGRINE
Returning to the mission that just took off towards our satellite, some of the cargoes have a decidedly symbolic value, such as the coin dedicated to the Moon loaded with a Bitcoin and the copy of the Genesis Block, the first bitcoin block to be mined, reports Ansa. Also on board are works from Carnegie Mellon University's MoonArk project and two nano-lithographs by the Italian artist Alessandro Scali, positioned on two chips.
Finally, the mission will also carry many other non-scientific items, including payloads for two companies, Elysium Space and Celestis, which offer “space burials” by carrying cremated remains into orbit or to the moon. The latter have raised protests from the Navajo, one of the largest indigenous tribes in the country. The moon holds a sacred place among the Navajo, and President Buu Nygren has said that private companies placing cremated human remains on lunar soil violate the tribes' religions and traditions.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/tutto-su-astrobotic-la-societa-americana-sponsorizzata-dalla-nasa-che-ha-lanciato-il-primo-lander-privato-sulla-luna/ on Mon, 08 Jan 2024 12:26:19 +0000.