CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched two lunar landers on Wednesday for Japanese and American businesses hoping to get a head start on the dusty companion of Earth.
The two landers, the most recent in a series of commercial spacecraft aiming for the moon, took off in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. They took different circuitous routes for the months-long journey, splitting the ride to save money but splitting up an hour into the flight as scheduled.
The Tokyo-based company iSpace, whose first lander crashed onto the moon two years ago, is on its second try. In addition to plans to examine possible food and water sources for future explorers, this time it has an explorer on board with a scoop to collect lunar dirt for study.
Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based lunar newbie, is doing ten tests for NASA, including a drill to gauge the temperature below the surface, a vacuum to collect dirt, and a tool that future moonwalkers would employ to keep the sharp, abrasive particles off their spacesuits and gear.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost, which is named after a type of firefly found in the Southeastern United States, ought to get at the moon first. Early in March, the 6-foot-6-inch (2-meter) lander will try to land at Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain in the northern latitudes.
Resilience, a slightly larger iSpace lander, will arrive in four to five months with the goal of landing at Mare Frigoris, which is even further north on the moon’s near side, in late May or early June.
This is not a race, in our opinion. Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO and founder of iSpace, stated this week from Cape Canaveral that while some people claim it’s a race to the moon, it’s not about speed.
Given the debris strewn across the lunar surface, Hakamada and Firefly CEO Jason Kim agree that there are still obstacles to overcome. Since the 1960s, just five nations—the US, China, India, Japan, and the erstwhile Soviet Union—have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon.
Kim stated, “We’ve done everything we can in terms of engineering and design.” But on Tuesday night, for good luck, he pinned an Irish shamrock on the lapel of his blazer.
The only country to land astronauts is still the United States. The goal of NASA’s Artemis mission, which will replace Apollo, is to return humans to the moon by the end of the decade.
On the eve of launch, NASA’s scientific mission chief, Nicky Fox, stated, “We’re sending a lot of science and a lot of technology ahead of time to prepare for that before that can happen.”
Both spacecraft, if they successfully land, will run in continuous daylight for two weeks before shutting down when night falls.
Ispace’s 11-pound (5-kilogram) rover will remain close to the lander once it is put into the lunar surface, moving in circles up to hundreds of yards (meters) away at a speed of less than one inch (a few centimeters) per second. A toy-sized red house created by a Swedish artist is the rover’s unique delivery to be dropped off in the lunar dust.
For the mission and the experiments, Firefly is receiving $101 million and $44 million from NASA, respectively. Hakamada refused to reveal the price of iSpace’s six-experiment revival, claiming it was less expensive than the initial mission, which cost over $100 million.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines is scheduled to launch its second moonshot for NASA by the end of February. The corporation made the first lunar landing in over 50 years last year, landing sideways close to the south pole but continuing to function.
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