US companies are set to launch for the Moon on February 14, This comes just weeks after a private American moon lander, Peregrine, burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere upon its return. The objective of the next lunar mission is to achieve the first landing of a US-built lunar lander on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
SpaceX is targeting a 12:57 am (0557 GMT) blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander expected to land on the Moon on February 22, at an impact crater near the lunar south pole.
NASA paid Intuitive Machines more than $100 million to ship its scientific hardware on the mission, part of a broader strategy to stimulate a lunar economy and delegate routine cargo missions to the private sector.
The “Nova-C” lander’s payload includes instruments to better understand the lunar environment as NASA prepares to send human crew members back to the celestial body under the Artemis program later this decade.
It also includes more colorful cargo, including sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons.
Only five nations have achieved soft lunar landings. The Soviet Union was first, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon. China achieved the feat three times in the past decade, followed by India, and most recently Japan.
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