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A lunar lander in the United States has overcome a major hurdle on its way to its first space flight this year.
the Lunar landerIt was built by Astrobotics, completed its last space qualification tests this month, the Pittsburgh-based company announced Wednesday (January 25). Engineers are now awaiting approval from United Launch Alliance (ULA) to ship Peregrine from Pittsburgh to Florida to mate with United Launch Alliance (ULA). Vulcan Centaur missile.
Sharad Baskaran, Astrobotic mission manager for the Peregrine 1 mission, said in a statement Permit (Opens in a new tab). “Everyone worked so hard, even during the holidays, for this amazing feat.”
Peregrine is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2023 From Cape Canaveral Space StationHowever, like all launch dates, this is subject to change depending on technical matters, weather, and many other factors. The mission, the first launch of the new Vulcan Centaur, marks a new generation of lunar rover efforts by private companies.
Related: NASA’s Complete Dashboard of Moon Missions Before the Astronauts Could Go
The Peregrine lander, loaded with 11 NASA payloads, has been selected for service through the Commercial Agency’s Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. NASA uses its own robotic landers, rovers, and other spacecraft to work in tandem Artemis program astronauts, who may land near the south pole of the moon by 2025 in Artemis 3 Expedition.
CLPS represents a new form of lunar exploration, and everyone has succeeded Moon Landing efforts so far have been led by states, not private companies. But that is expected to change dramatically in the 2020s, as many missions are being developed in the United States and other countries.
The first few CLPS missions will be survey efforts before the astronauts land, and future astronauts are expected to be located at Lunar South Pole NASA is building the infrastructure for a potential permanent settlement there. (It seems that Antarctica is rich in water ice, providing an ideal place for water-hungry machines and astronauts where they can extract the precious resource locally rather than ship it all the way from a land.)
It is not yet clear which CLPS mission will reach the Moon first, with several efforts scheduled in the coming months. In addition to the peregrine falcon, Intuitive machines It plans to launch the Nova-C lander in the first quarter of 2023, for example.
Meanwhile, another country with a special mission already on its way to the moon: the Hakuto-R lander, built by Tokyo-based company ispace, and is scheduled to land in April. After landing, the Hakuto-R will deploy the small Rashid rover provided by the UAE Space Agency.
Elizabeth Howell is co-author of “Why am I taller (Opens in a new tab)? (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @tweet (Opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @tweet (Opens in a new tab) or Facebook (Opens in a new tab).
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