First commercial lunar lander to launch in January

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First commercial lunar lander delayed to January

It seems Santa Claus will be the only one carrying a load of goodies on Christmas Eve this year. An incomplete launch rehearsal on Friday (December 8, 2023) set back the Christmas Eve launch date for the inaugural flight of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) Vulcan Centaur rocket. Its mission is to carry the first commercial lander to the moon. Now it looks like January 8, 2024, is as soon as we’ll see a liftoff.

ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno announced the delay on X (formerly Twitter):

#VulcanRocket WDR update: Vehicle performed well. Ground system had a couple of (routine) issues, (being corrected). Ran the timeline long so we didn't quite finish. I'd like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out. Next Peregrine window is 8 Jan.

— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) December 10, 2023

The company planned another wet dress rehearsal of the flight system on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, Bruno said in a follow-up message.

Preparing for Artemis

NASA is working with several American companies in preparation for future Artemis missions to the moon. NASA calls it the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) project. Part of having a human presence on the moon requires payloads sent to the moon to supply the astronauts with all their needs. As NASA said, these first commercial deliveries will:

… perform science experiments, test technologies and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the moon as it prepares for human missions.

Moon flight will be packed with payloads

The Vulcan Centaur’s first flight will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One, the first commercial lander targeting the moon. It was supposed to fly on December 24, 2023, and that would have been fitting, as the lander will be as packed with goodies as Santa’s sleigh.

Funded in part by NASA, the Peregrine Mission One will carry several small scientific instruments for the American aerospace agency. The Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and European Space Agency (ESA) will also fly science packages on Mission One.

Launching with the science payloads will be a variety of memorial, advertising, archival and citizen participation packages. Included are collections of photos of footprints from around the world, messages from children and even a lunar Bitcoin.

Solar system’s smallest rover and tiny robots

The Peregrine Lander isn’t a large vehicle, standing just 1.9 meters (6.2 feet). The rover it will take to the moon, however, is tiny. Built by Carnegie Mellon University students in Pennsylvania, the Iris lunar rover weighs in at just 2 kilos (4.4 pounds). The smallest and lightest rover ever sent into space, it’s also the first American rover heading to the moon. The Iris website says:

Iris’s shoebox sized chassis and bottle cap wheels are made from carbon fiber, attributing to its lightweight design and another first for planetary robotics. Along with testing small, lightweight rover mobility on the moon, Iris is collecting scientific images for geological sciences, as well as UWB RF ranging data for testing new relative localization techniques.

That’s still enormous compared to the robots the Mexican space agency is sending to the moon with Peregrine. Called COLMENA – Spanish for the hive – the project from the AEM will test the ability of a swarm of robots to act autonomously:

The five robots each weigh less than 60 grams (0.1 pounds) and measure 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) in diameter. All of their electronics will be less than two centimeters from the rocky rubble on the moon’s surface known as the lunar regolith.

NASA on the first commercial lunar landing

The Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly out of America’s East Coast space center in Florida. NASA provided all the technical details here:

Launch will take place from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket in the VC2S configuration, with 2 GEM-63XL solid boosters, a standard short faring, and two RL10 engines in the Centaur upper stage.

NASA also gave a timeline for the journey to the moon:

After a 3-to-33-day Earth orbit and cruise to the moon, followed by a 4 to 25 day lunar orbit phase, it will descend and land in Sinus Viscositatis (Bay of Stickiness) adjacent to the Gruitheisen Domes on the northeast border of Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). It is planned to land 55-110 hours after local sunrise and to operate for about 192 hours.

Bottom line: Peregrine Mission One – the first commercial lunar lander – will launch in January 2024. Its payload includes science, memorial, and citizen packages, and more.