NASA and private industry aim for moon landings in 2024
The next phase of the space agency’s Artemis campaign begins with a launch scheduled for Monday
In late 2022, NASA kicked off its Artemis campaign by flying the Orion spacecraft, uncrewed, on a test flight around the moon. Now, aim for the surface.
In the early hours of Monday, a spacecraft owned and operated by a commercial company and without a crew is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral on a mission that could result in a landing on February 23, marking the first American soft landing on the surface lunar in more than 50 years. If successful, it would also serve to boost a fleet of robotic missions that NASA hopes to send to the moon in the coming years, collaborating with private industry to eventually return astronauts there.
The next moon launch could occur in mid-February, when another company, Intuitive Machines, is scheduled to launch its moon lander on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. On Friday, a company spokesperson said they are targeting a landing on or before February 22, which, if successful, would surpass Astrobotic by a day and make Intuitive Machines the first commercial entity to land on the moon.
Astrobotic’s launch on Monday would mark another potentially major milestone, the first flight of an expected new rocket designed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, called Vulcan. The Pentagon is eager to use the rocket, but ULA must successfully complete two certification missions before it can launch satellites for the Department of Defense.
Monday’s launch, scheduled for 2:18 a.m. Eastern Time, is also a big moment for Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. Two BE-4 engines manufactured by Blue Origin will power the first stage of ULA’s Vulcan rocket on its first flight. Bezos and ULA CEO Tory Bruno first announced the engine deal in 2014 after Congress forced ULA, which had been using Russian engines, to find a domestic supplier. But the engines took much longer to develop than initially planned, forcing a delay in Vulcan’s debut. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The missions come as NASA prepares for Orion’s second flight around the moon, this time with four people on board. Currently, the flight, a 10-day mission around the moon known as Artemis II, is scheduled for later this year. But that could be delayed until 2025, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, as engineers continue to study how the capsule’s heat shield performed during its first flight to the moon.
Meanwhile, SpaceX continues testing its Starship rocket and spacecraft, the vehicle NASA has selected to land astronauts on the moon for the first two human landings under Artemis. Its two previous launch attempts failed to reach orbit, but Elon Musk’s company showed significant progress between them. Recently, they performed the ignition test of the engines of the next booster and ship they plan to launch. It appears to be close to another attempt, but still needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Astrobotic hopes to land on the moon on February 23 as it wanders in lunar orbit, waiting for the sun to shine on the intended landing site. Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said at a press conference in November that the spacecraft will take a fairly direct route to the moon. As for difficulties, Thornton told reporters Friday that the company faced “a lot of challenges that we’ve had to overcome,” including “a lot of skeptics.” He said the company is aware of the difficulty of landing on the moon and the past failures of many other attempts. “It will be exciting, nerve-wracking and terrifying at the same time, a whole range of emotions,” he said. “If you look back in history, only about half of those missions have been successful. And most of them have been funded by superpowers with budgets vastly larger than the current mission. So it’s a really big challenge.”
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However, he said, “Leading the United States back to the surface of the moon for the first time since Apollo is a momentous honor that we are lucky to be a part of.”
NASA reported Friday that the value of Astrobotic’s contract is $108 million.
An Intuitive Machines spokesperson said the company expects its spacecraft to touch down “approximately seven days after launch.” But he’s only said its release date will be mid-February, so it’s unclear which company will land first.
There are several significant space events scheduled for 2024. On January 19, the Japanese space agency plans to land a robotic vehicle on the moon, which would make Japan the fifth country to do so. But landing on the moon is risky, and many have tried and failed in the past. Last year, Japanese company ispace lost a spacecraft in a moon landing attempt. Russia also lost a spacecraft attempting to land on the moon last year.
Axiom, a Houston-based company, intends to fly its third private astronaut mission to the space station on January 17. And in February, SpaceX plans to launch its eighth crew rotation mission to the International Space Station.
In April, Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who commissioned a private astronaut mission aboard SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, is also scheduled to conduct another all-civilian mission in which the crew would exit the Dragon for a spacewalk in pressurized suits. designed by SpaceX.
Also in April, Boeing is expected to launch two NASA astronauts to the space station on the first crewed test flight of its Starliner capsule, something SpaceX has already done several times.
SpaceX launched a record 98 rockets into orbit in 2023 and plans to launch up to 144 this year, as it continues to deploy its Starlink internet satellite constellation.
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