Posted on 01/08/2024 6:32:19 AM PST by Red Badger
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—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.
“So, so, so excited. We are on our way to the moon!” Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton said.
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, Mr. Thornton noted.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
You don’t believe the manned moon landings ever happened?
On what basis?
The landings were not fake. The ‘filming’ of the landings was. The communication between the President and the Lunar Lander crew was faked (i.e. edited due to gaps between sending and receiving messages.)
Did the Navajos get their payoff, then?
Must have.................
So we faked the Space Shuttle missions too?
"After successfully separating from United Launce Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander began receiving telemetry via the NASA Deep Space Network. Astrobotic-built avionics systems, including the primary command and data handling unit, as well as the thermal, propulsion, and power controllers, all powered on and performed as expected. After successful propulsion systems activation, Peregrine entered a safe operational state. Unfortunately, an anomaly then occurred, which prevented Astrobotic from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation. The team is responding in real time as the situation unfolds and will be providing updates as more data is obtained and analyzed."
Hopefully they will get this corrected, before attempted landing.
BTW my DNA is on board, as part of LifeShip's "seed bank".
Really sad that this thread is getting derailed by moon landing conspiracy garbage. Do people not understand that this is the first flight of Vulcan, the successor to Atlas V? Do they not understand that Vulcan is 100% American content and ends our reliance on the Russian RD-180? Yes, the launch is months late, but it went off perfectly AND at night, to boot!
Of course it went off at night, they are going to the Moon!.............😜
None of that matters.
Only anti vax and anti debt issues matter to the orthodox here.
Quit lying.
Correct. This is an important step in the USA’s current space launch capabilities.
“Hopefully there will be live video from the lander.”
They’ll just say the video is fake, because it’s either a) too high quality or b) too low quality.
For some reason, I find it mildly amusing that the first flight of Bezos’ engines is on somebody else’s rocket. Will New Glenn EVER get off the ground?
No. Shuttle missions have gone no further than 350 miles. Below the Van Allen Radiation Belts
New Glenn seems to be in a state of perpetual development.
The highest shuttle apogee was 386 miles when it deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
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