American companies will try to send a machine to the Moon on February 14, Valentine’s Day, NASA announced on Wednesday, a month after the failure of a first private mission.
This mission will be carried out by a moon lander from the company Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, Texas, which will be attached to the top of a SpaceX rocket.
The last attempt, in January, was carried out by a moon lander from the company Atrobotic, launched aboard a Vulcan Centaur rocket from the ULA group, which brings together Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Due to an in-flight fuel leak, the aircraft failed to reach the Moon and was intentionally disintegrated upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The launch is planned by SpaceX on February 14 at 12:57 a.m. (05:57 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Intuitive Machines lander, called Nova-C, should then land on the moon on February 22, near the lunar south pole.
If the Intuitive Machines and SpaceX mission is a success, it would be the first landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program, more than 50 years ago, and the first landing on the lunar surface succeeded by a private company.
The Nova-C lander will transport scientific instruments from NASA to the Moon, which has signed a contract worth more than $100 million with the company Intuitive Machines.
These should provide a better understanding of the lunar environment, in order to help the American space agency prepare for the return of astronauts to the natural satellite, which it is planning with its Artemis program.
The Nova-C craft will also carry colorful sculptures by contemporary artist Jeff Koons.
Landing on the Moon is particularly complex due to the lack of an atmosphere, meaning parachutes cannot be employed and a spacecraft must use its thrusters to make a controlled descent.
Before the failure of the Astrobotic mission in January, attempts by private Israeli and Japanese companies ended in crashes in 2019 and 2023.
A small Japanese spacecraft named SLIM, however, managed to land on the Moon at the end of January, but was not able to use its solar panels immediately after its landing, as it planned.
