The big mission of the week was undoubtedly the 7th flight of the Starship, but a few days ago, another rocket left Earth, heading towards our satellite: the Moon. The launch took place from the Kennedy Space Center launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Under the hood of this SpaceX Falcon 9, two lunar landers.
The first, created by the teams of the Japanese start-up ispace, was a replica of an old model, which crashed on the Moon in April 2023. With this new launch, the company wants to go further, and bring a private lander on the surface of our satellite.
An objective shared by the company Firefly Aerospace, based in Texas and neighbor of SpaceX. With its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander, it must carry out various experiments on behalf of NASA. The two probes are due to land next March on the surface of our satellite.
Two private, but scientific missions
The two devices must collect lunar dust for analysis. The objective is in particular to find sources of water and food on the Moon. In a message posted on social networks, ispace teams confirmed radio contact with the lander. They hope to be able to reach the Sea of Cold at the far north of the Moon in spring.
As for Firefly Aerospace, the Texan start-up has obtained an envelope of 145 million dollars from NASA to carry out several scientific missions on site. Jason Kim, one of the mission leaders, explained that the rover should operate for an entire lunar day (about 2 weeks).
-Just before nightfall, it should capture a high-resolution image of the sunset from the Moon. This image, in addition to being magnificent, should provide information on how the lunar regolith (the rock present on the surface) reacts to solar rays.
Setting the stage for NASA
On the side of the American space agency, these two missions are eagerly awaited. They are part of the CLPS program, a set of private missions with a budget of $2.4 billion. They should all make it possible to collect information on the functioning of the Moon.
This data will make it possible to better prepare the Artemis missions, which should mark the return of Man to the Moon. Artemis 3, scheduled for 2026, should mark the first step of a woman and a person of color on lunar soil, 50 years after the last Apollo missions.
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