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Cape Canaveral, Florida — The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other customers. Astrobotic Technology's lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon that should culminate with an attempted landing on Feb. 23. The Pittsburgh company aims to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, and could beat it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct path. “First to launch. First to land is TBD" — to be determined, said Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton. NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA tech and science experiments as well as odds and ends for other customers. Astrobotic's contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million. The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle. The space agency’s new Artemis program — named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology — looks to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next few years. First will be a lunar fly-around with four astronauts, possibly before the end of the year. Highlighting Monday's moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The 61-meter rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s hugely successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta IV. Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, provided the Vulcan's two main engines. The Soviet Union and the U.S. racked up a string of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, before putting touchdowns on pause. China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year also saw landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019. Next month, SpaceX will provide the lift for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander's more direct one-week route could see both spacecraft attempting to land within days or even hours of one another. The hourlong descent to the lunar surface — by far the biggest challenge — will be “exciting, nail-biting, terrifying all at once,” said Thornton. Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic drummed up its own freight business, packing the 1.9-meter-tall Peregrine lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest and toy-size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around, to the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. The Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains, saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans. Thornton said the December objections came too late but promised to try to find “a good path forward” with the Navajo for future missions. One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission. More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which, once free of the lander, will indefinitely circle the sun as far out as Mars. Cargo fares for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram, not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that's not the point, according to Thornton. “A lot of people’s dreams and hopes are riding on this,” he said.

Cape Canaveral, Florida — The first American spacecraft to attempt to land on the Moon in more than half a century is poised to blast off early Monday — but this time, private industry is leading the charge.   A brand-new rocket, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, should lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:18 a.m. (7:18 GMT) for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander. The weather so far appears favorable. If all goes to plan, Peregrine will touch down on a mid-latitude region of the Moon called Sinus Viscositatis, or Bay of Stickiness, on February 23. "Leading America back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo is a momentous honor," Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic's CEO John Thornton said ahead of the launch. Until now, a soft landing on Earth's nearest celestial neighbor has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.   China has successfully landed three times over the past decade, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt, last year. Now, the United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and ship its own hardware at a fraction of the cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. A challenging task   The space agency has paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the task, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is looking to launch in February and land near the south pole. "We think that it's going to allow... more cost effective and more rapidly accomplished trips to the lunar surface to prepare for Artemis," said NASA's Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration. Artemis is the NASA-led program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, in preparation for future missions to Mars. Controlled touchdown on the Moon is a challenging undertaking, with roughly half of all attempts ending in failure. Absent an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate through treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent. Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency have all ended in failure — though the Japanese Space Agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September. Making matters more fraught is the fact it is the first launch for ULA's Vulcan, although the company boasts it has a 100 percent success rate in its more than 150 prior launches. ULA's new rocket is planned to have reusable first stage booster engines, which the company, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, expects will help it achieve cost savings. Science instruments, human remains On board Peregrine are a suite of scientific instruments that will probe radiation and surface composition, helping to pave the way for the return of astronauts. But it also contains more colorful cargo, including a shoebox-sized rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, a physical Bitcoin, and, somewhat controversially, cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke, and a dog. The Navajo Nation, America's largest Indigenous tribe, has said sending these to the Moon desecrates a body that is sacred to their culture and have pleaded for the cargo's removal. Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with the White House, NASA and other officials, their objections have been ignored.   The Vulcan rocket's upper stage, which will circle the Sun after it deploys the lander, is meanwhile carrying more late cast members of Star Trek, as well as hair samples of presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.  

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