For the first time in more than 50 years, a commercially built American lander was fired off to the moon early Monday, a small robotic probe called Peregrine that's packed with 20 experiments and international payloads, including five NASA science instruments and a sensor valued at $108 million.
Other payloads include university experiments, a collection of Mexican and U.S. micro rovers, artwork, compact time capsules, a bitcoin and even a small collection of human "cremains" provided by two companies that offer memorial flights to space.
While the Peregrine lander, built by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, was the mission's showcase payload, its ride to space was equally important, if not moreso: the long-awaited maiden flight of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan rocket, a heavy-lift booster that's replacing the company's workhorse Atlas and Delta family of launchers.
After a surprisingly problem-free countdown, the Vulcan's two methane-burning BE-4 engines and twin solid-propellant strap-on boosters thundered to life at 2:18 a.m. EST, lighting up the deep overnight sky with a brilliant burst of fire and billowing clouds of exhaust.
The 198-foot-tall, 1.5-million-pound rocket majestically climbed skyward from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop two million pounds of thrust, quickly arcing away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean in a sky-lighting spectacle visible across central Florida
The flight plan called for the Peregrine lander to be released into a highly elliptical Earth orbit. The spacecraft is expected to spend about 18 days in that orbit before firing its thrusters to head for the moon.
After loitering in a low-altitude circular orbit while waiting for sunrise at the landing site, the spacecraft will begin its descent on Feb. 23, targing touchdown near an enigmatic volcanic feature known as the Gruithuisen Domes.
"It's hard to put into words how excited Astrobotic is for making this first mission back to the surface of the Moon since Apollo," said CEO John Thornton. "This is a moment 16 years in the making. We've had to overcome a lot along the way, a lot of doubt.
"When we started in Pittsburgh, the idea of building a space company, much less one to go to the moon, was completely foreign and alien, and folks literally laughed at the concept. But 16 years later ... here we are on the launch pad."
Along with adding a powerful new rocket to the U.S. inventory, the launch was the first in a series of private-sector moon missions funded under a NASA program intended to spur development of commercial lunar transportation and surface delivery services.
NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program or CLPS, "will usher in not only great new science for NASA in the United States, but the first test of this new model where it's not NASA's mission, NASA is being carried to the surface of the moon as part of a commercial mission with a commercial launch vehicle," said Joel Kearns, a senior CLPS manager.
As for the Vulcan, Mark Peller, ULA's vice president of Vulcan development, said "it's the future of our company."
The system that we've developed is really positioning us for a very bright, prosperous future for many, many years to come," he said. "It has proven to already be an extremely competitive product in the marketplace, having an order book of over 70 missions before first flight."
Replacing the company's expensive Delta 4 and workhorse Atlas 5 rocket, which uses Russian RD-180 Russian engines, the Vulcan relies on two BE-4 first stage engines built by Blue Origin, the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
At liftoff, the twin BE-4s generate 1.1 million pounds of thrust. Two Northrop Grumman strap-on solid-propellant boosters, or SRBs, generate another 919,200 pounds of push, providing a total thrust of just over 2 million pounds. The Vulcan can be launched with up to six strap ons depending on mission requirements.
The new rocket also features a more powerful hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage with two Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10C engines capable of boosting heavy military payloads into so-called high-energy orbits that can't be easily reached by rockets optimized for low-Earth orbit.
"No one in the world still designs a high-energy-optimized rocket," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told a small group of reporters at the launch pad Saturday. "That market has been abandoned by the commercial providers because it's less expensive (and) less risky to develop rockets designed for LEO (low-Earth orbit) operations."
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(Story Source) CBS NEWS
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