It’s been fifty years since the last US mission to the moon. On Monday, though, a US lunar lander took off from Florida to send things to NASA and other customers.
The rover made by Astrobotic Technology is called Peregrine. It was one of the first to go to the moon. Vulcan, United Launch Alliance’s brand-new rocket, helped it take off on Monday. It should land on February 23.
The goal of this Pittsburgh company is to be the first private company to land on the moon. So far, only four countries have been able to do this successfully. But a company in Houston is ready to launch its own lander that will take a more straight path to the moon’s surface. It remains to be seen who will get there first.
NASA basically gave two different businesses millions of dollars to build and run their own moon landers so that they could send packages and move goods. As an example, Astrobotic spent $108 million on the Peregrine lander. The space company wants the landers to check out the moon before the humans get there.
It will also be the job of the landers to bring goods. A bit of Mount Everest, toy cars from Mexico, and the ashes or DNA of people who loved space and died, like Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, have already been put on the Peregrine lander.
The last time the US sent people to the moon was in 1972, when Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the surface of the moon. NASA hasn’t sent any more spacecraft to the moon since then.
So, the new program from the Space Agency called Artemis wants to send people to the moon in the next few years. First, four men will fly around the moon. This could happen before the end of the year.
As NASA looks into the moon again, we can expect to learn more. Landers on the moon have become more famous since we’ve seen them from Russia and Japan. Soon, we’ll also see them from SpaceX.
