Cabo Cañaveral, Florida – TO private enterprise Launched another lunar landing on Wednesday, with the aim of approaching the South Pole of the Moon This time with a drone that will climb a black reaction crater that never sees the sun.
The intuitive terrain of the machines, called Athena, caught an Ecenter with Spacex of the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Is taking a fast track To the moon – With a landing on March 6, while waiting to avoid the Destination of his predecessorthat leaned in the TouchDown.
There were never so many spacecraft at the surface of the moon at the same time. Last month, American and Japanese companies He shared a rocket and launched Landers separately towards the teammate. Firefly Aerospace, based in Texas, should arrive first this weekend after a great advantage.
The two US territies carry dozens of millions of dollars in NASA experiments while preparing to Return astronauts To the moon.
“It’s an incredible moment. There is so much energy, “said the head of NASA’s scientific mission, Nicky Fox, to The Associated Press a few hours before launch.
This is not the first lunar rodeo of intuitive machines. Last year, the Texas company made the first touchdown in the United States on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that describes the distance did not work and the landing fell too much and broke one leg, turning over its side.
Intuitive Machines said it has solved the problem and dozens of others. A lateral landing like the last time would prevent drone and a couple of rovers from moving. NASA’s exercise also needs a vertical landing to drill under the lunar surface to collect soil samples for analysis.
“Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last. But you never know what could happen, “said Trent Martin, Senior Vice President of Space Systems.
It is an elite club extraordinarily. Only five countries have achieved a lunar landing throughout the decades: Russia, the United States, China, India and Japan. The moon is full of remains of many past failures.
The 15 -feet athenaeum (4.7 meters) will be directed to a 100 -mile landing (160 kilometers) of the South Lunar Pole. Only a quarter of a mile (400 meters) away is a permanent shaded crater, the final destination for the drone called Grace.
The name of the pioneer of the late computers program Grace Hopper, the 3 -foot (1 meter) drone will make three increasingly high and longer test jumps on the lunar surface using the shock absorbers fed by hydrazine for the flight and the cameras and the lasers for navigation.
If these excursions are going well, it will jump to the near -tone black crater, approximately 65 feet (20 meters) deep. The scientific instruments of Hungary and Germany will take measures in the background while they hunt frozen water.
It will be the first look closely one of the many shaded craters that splashed the northern posts as south. Scientists suspect that these craters are full of tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers in drinking water, breathing air and even rocket fuel.
NASA is paying $ 62 million to intuitive machines to obtain its perforation and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space in the landing to others. He also opened the Falcon rocket to share trips.
Tagalongs included the NASA trailblazer lunar satellite, which will fly separately to the moon for the next months before entering the lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. There was also a private spacecraft that will pursue an asteroid for an overflow, a precursor of asteroid mining.
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