Triumph for "Nova-C"
First commercial moon landing a success
For the first time in the history of space travel, a commercial landing on the moon has been successful. The "Nova-C" lander from the US company Intuitive Machines touched down in the southern region of the Earth's satellite on Friday night. Nasa boss Bill Nelson spoke of a "triumph".
It is the first - albeit unmanned - US moon landing since the legendary Apollo missions more than 50 years ago.
It was not initially clear what condition "Nova-C" was in after landing. Initially, only weak signals were received, according to the control center. They are working on getting stronger signals and finding out more about the exact condition of the lander.
"Nova-C" was launched about a week ago from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida. The means of transportation was a "Falcon 9" rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. The mission is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
About "Nova-C"
The "Nova-C" lander, nicknamed "Ulysses", is about the size of an old-fashioned British telephone box, has aluminum legs, weighs around 700 kilograms and can carry around 130 kilograms of cargo. NASA has filled a large part of it with research equipment and other materials, while the rest has been secured mainly by commercial companies for their projects. In addition, US artist Jeff Koons has sent 125 miniature sculptures made of stainless steel.
With this program, the US space agency wants to gather as much knowledge as possible on its own way back to the moon comparatively cheaply and efficiently. Intuitive Machines received around 77 million dollars for the "Nova-C" mission.
Images of the "Nova-C" mission:
Moon landings are considered to be technically highly demanding and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned landings have already gone differently than hoped: the US company Astrobotic, based in Pittsburgh, sent the "Peregrine" capsule off in January - also part of NASA's "CLPS" program.
Shortly after the launch, however, there were problems due to a malfunction in the propulsion system. Although the engineers managed to stabilize the capsule temporarily, the goal of landing on the moon had to be abandoned. A few days later, "Peregrine" burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.
Shortly afterwards, the lander "SLIM " (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) from the Japanese space agency Jaxa touched down gently on the moon, but initially had problems with the power supply.
Only after days of power failure was "SLIM" able to go into operation after all. This makes Japan the fifth country - after the USA, Russia, China and India - to have successfully completed an unmanned landing on the moon. In April last year, a Japanese company failed with a similar mission.
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