CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — China and India scored moon landings, while Russia, Japan and Israel ended up in the lunar trash heap.
Now two private companies are hustling to get the U.S. back in the game, more than five decades after the Apollo program ended.
It’s part of a NASA-supported effort to kick-start commercial moon deliveries, as the space agency focuses on getting astronauts back there.
“They’re scouts going to the moon ahead of us,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology is up first with a planned liftoff of a lander Monday aboard a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. Houston’s Intuitive Machines aims to launch a lander in mid-February, hopping a flight with SpaceX.
Then there’s Japan, which will attempt to land in two weeks. The Japanese Space Agency’s lander with two toy-size rovers had a big head start, sharing a September launch with an X-ray telescope that stayed behind in orbit around Earth.
If successful, Japan will become the fifth country to pull off a lunar landing. Russia and the U.S. did it repeatedly in the 1960s and 70s. China has landed three times in the past decade — including on the moon’s far side — and is returning to the far side later this year to bring back lunar samples. And just last summer, India did it. Only the U.S. has put astronauts on the moon.
Landing without wrecking is no easy feat. There’s hardly any atmosphere to slow spacecraft, and parachutes won’t work. That means a lander must descend using thrusters, while navigating past treacherous cliffs and craters.
A Japanese millionaire’s company, ispace, saw its lander smash into the moon last April, followed by Russia’s crash landing in August. India triumphed a few days later near the south polar region; it was the country’s second try after crashing in 2019.
