If the launch of Wednesday of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket of Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday proceeds as planned, it will carry a font-charge of science with.
The rocket will carry not one, not two, but three important useful charges, including a satellite to orbit the moon, a private lunar landing and a spacecraft that could open the way to asteroid extraction. He also launches an unidentified 16u satellite, managed by Exolunch, which will park in orbit of the geostationary land.
While the mission launch window opens on February 26, Blastoff occurring ideally at 7:17 pm He of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, these types of things can be hastily delayed if the conditions are not optimal. That said, the 45th meteorological squadron is currently forecast 95% chance of conditions favorable to launch, so things are fine. NASA will be live from the launch on its website. Alternatively, you can look at it in the live flows below, graciousness of the NASA Spaceflight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi0clw7j6ic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM8WRJD3XVA
After decades to be widely ignored, the moon has become an object of increased fascination, and two elements on the manifesto could provide data which contributes to the objective of building crew bases on the lunar surface. This includes a Lander Nova-C, nicknamed Athena, built by intuitive machines for the Commercial Program of Lunar Payload Services (CLP) of NASA.
In February 2024, intuitive machines became the first private enterprise to successfully land on the moon, although there was a slight Snafu. The company’s Ulysses ended up getting one of her legs caught, dropping her on the side. Like Ulysses, Athena is ready to land in the region of the south pole of the Moon, especially in an area called Mons Mouton. The landing is equipped with a drilling and mass spectrometer, which it will use – if everything goes well – to search and measure chemical components such as water, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus that could support a future exploration equipped with the moon.
The coupling on the Lander will be Grace, a micro-nova robot designed to enter and out of a permanently shaded crater. Inside the crater, Grace will look for water and take some photos.
Also going to the moon is NASA Lunar pioneerA small satellite designed to map the distribution of water through the lunar surface. The mission aims to solve the mystery of the moon water cycle, while answering questions about the form, quantity and distribution of lunar water.
Another spacecraft will zoom in towards the moon, but it will not stop there. Astroforge, founded in 2022, seeks to become the first company to extract asteroids for precious minerals. In 2023, he launched his first mission, a satellite which was supposed to vaporize and sort the preloaded materials preloaded. The mission did not do so well, because the company had trouble communicating with the spacecraft and had problems deploying its solar range. For this follow -up mission, launching Wednesday, the company is decidedly more ambitious.
In case of success, the Odin spacecraft of Astroforge will set a record as a private ship furthest from history. Odin’s flight plan calls for a five -day trip to the moon, using its gravity to propel itself to an asteroid called 2022 OB5, a candidate for future mines due to its possible metallic composition.
It is not clear when Odin could reach the asteroid. “This objective will take much more time to reach and therefore has a much lower probability of success,” said CEO Matt Gialich in a statement.
Gialich seemed to temper expectations before launch, saying that the company “takes exceptional risks on this mission, more risks than most companies would not be willing to accept”.
“If this mission fails, the fault puts me alone,” he added. “I was involved in the intimate details of each compromise that we have made – and we did a lot.”
If everything is going well, in several decades, you might think of this launch as a turning point, when you sit in your lounge of the moon, admiring your watch based on mined asteroids.
