For the first time in the history of space travel, a commercial landing on the moon was successful. The lander “Nova-C” from the American company Intuitive Machines landed in the southern region of the Earth satellite on Friday evening. NASA boss Bill Nelson called it a “triumph”.
It is the first – albeit unmanned – American moon landing since the legendary Apollo missions more than fifty years ago.
It was initially not clear what condition “Nova-C” was in after landing. The control center said only weak signals were initially received. They are working to obtain stronger signals and more information about the exact condition of the lander.
“Nova-C” was launched about a week ago from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida. The means of transport was a ‘Falcon 9’ rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX. The mission is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. With this program, the American space agency wants to collect as much knowledge as possible on its own way back to the moon in a relatively cheap and efficient manner. Intuitive Machines received approximately $77 million for the “Nova-C” mission.
Moon landings are seen as technically very demanding and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned landings turned out differently than hoped: the American company Astrobotic, based in Pittsburgh, sent the ‘Peregrine’ capsule – also part of NASA’s ‘CLPS’ program – in January.
Shortly after take-off, however, problems arose due to a malfunction in the propulsion system. The engineers were able to temporarily stabilize the capsule, but the goal of landing on the moon had to be abandoned. A few days later, ‘Peregrine’ burned up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Images of the “Nova-C” mission:
Shortly afterwards, the lander “SLIM” (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) of the Japanese space agency Jaxa landed gently on the moon, but initially had problems with the energy supply.
“SLIM” could only be put into use after days of power failure. This makes Japan the fifth country – after the US, Russia, China and India – to successfully complete an unmanned landing on the moon. Last April, a Japanese company with a similar mission failed.
Source: Krone
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