In a two-shot lunar mission, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday (Jan. 15) for U.S. and Japanese companies seeking to kick-start lunar businesses.
The two landers rocketed off late at night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, toward Earth’s dusty satellite. The private space company live-broadcasted the latest launch. The two landers were launched on a shared rocket to save costs, but an hour into the flight they split up exactly as planned. They will take separate detours on a journey that will last several months.
For Tokyo-based ispace, it was the second time. The company’s first lander crashed on the moon two years ago in a hard landing. This time it brought a rover equipped with a scoop to collect lunar dust for study and plans to test potential sources of food and water for future explorers.
Firefly Aerospace, based in Texas, is a newcomer to the moon-landing world. The company is carrying out 10 experiments for NASA on the mission, including a dust collector to collect moon dust, a drill to measure temperatures below the lunar surface and a device that could be used by future moonwalkers to prevent sharp and corrosive particles from getting on spacesuits and equipment.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost, named after a species of firefly found in the southeastern United States, should reach the moon first. The 6-foot-6-inch (2-meter) lander will attempt to land in early May in Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain in the moon’s northern latitudes.
Ispace’s slightly larger lander, called Resilience, will take four to five months to reach the moon, aiming to touch down in late May or early June in Mare Frigoris, further north on the moon’s near side.
“We don’t see this as a race,” Ispace Chief Financial Officer Jumpei Nozaki said this week from Cape Canaveral. “Some people say it’s a ‘race to the moon,’ but it’s not about speed.”
Both Nozaki and Firefly CEO Jason Kim acknowledged challenges ahead, given the debris-strewn lunar surface. Since the 1960s, only five countries have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon: the former Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan.
“We’ve done everything possible in terms of design and engineering,” said Kim, who nonetheless wore an Irish shamrock on his lapel Tuesday night for good luck.
The United States remains the only country to have landed astronauts on the moon. NASA’s current Artemis program, the successor to Apollo, aims to return astronauts to the moon by the end of this decade.
“We’re sending a lot of science and a lot of technology ahead of time,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s science mission chief, on the eve of the launch, before humans return to the moon.
If they land successfully, both spacecraft will spend two weeks on the moon in daylight, shutting down once night falls.
Once unloaded on the lunar surface, ispace’s 11-pound (5-kilogram) rover will stay near the lander, roaming in circles at less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) per second, no farther than a few hundred yards (meters). The rover has its own special delivery device to land on the dusty moon.
NASA paid Firefly $101 million for the mission and another $44 million for the experiments. Nozaki declined to disclose the cost of ispace’s revival mission, which will feature six experiments. He said it cost less than the first mission, which cost more than $100 million.
Next, in late February, Houston-based Intuitive Machines will conduct NASA’s second lunar landing mission. Last year, the company successfully carried out the first U.S. lunar landing in more than half a century, landing on its side near the moon’s south pole but still managing to stay operational.
