First commercial Moon mission lifts off on Vulcan heavy rocket

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A rocket carrying US hopes of returning to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years lifted off from Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida early on Monday.

The first flight of the Vulcan Centaur heavy rocket built by United Launch Alliance carried the Peregrine lunar lander developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology. Peregrine separated from the rocket roughly 50 minutes after launch. If the lander reaches the lunar surface safely it would be the first successful commercial mission to the Moon — an attempt by Japan’s iSpace last April failed when its lander crashed on the surface.

John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said the launch was the “dawn of a new era” for space exploration. “It is an opportunity for commercial payloads to fly to the Moon on a regular basis,” he said from Cape Canaveral’s control room. “It means our scientists . . . can access the Moon like never before.”

Peregrine is the first of eight planned missions in Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services initiative, a vital step in the US space agency’s Artemis programme which aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo programme ended in 1972. Nasa hopes it can reduce the cost of future missions by sponsoring the private sector.

Peregrine is carrying five scientific payloads to the lunar surface for Nasa, as well as 15 others, including from Hungary, Mexico and the UK. The Vulcan rocket is also carrying a second mission from Celestis, a space memorial group which is sending the cremated remains and DNA of the cast and creator of the 1960s television series Star Trek into deep space, eventually to circle the Sun at a safe orbit.

The launch starts Peregrine’s 384,400km journey. But once in Moon’s orbit, Peregrine will wait until it is light enough in space to allow it to attempt a landing around February 23.

The launch of the 61-metre Vulcan is a milestone for Colorado-based ULA, which is reported to have been put up for sale by its joint owners, US defence and aerospace companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The rocket, which weighed 663 tonnes when fully fuelled, has been more than a decade in development but its launch has suffered delays due to issues with the BE-4 engines provided by Blue Origin, owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and an explosion during testing last March.

Vulcan Centaur replaces ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets which had been the workhorse of US government missions until the arrival of SpaceX’s Falcon 9. This flight is the first of two that will certify Vulcan for military payloads, with the second expected in April. Vulcan has four more flights booked in this year, and a backlog of more than 70 flights planned. It is hoping to fly twice a month by the end of next year.

It is also seeking to snare a share of the rapidly growing commercial launch sector but comes to market as SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk prepares for a third attempt to launch his giant Starship. SpaceX has already revolutionised the cost of launch with its reusable Falcon rocket, and Starship’s 100- to 150-tonne capacity is widely expected to drive costs down even further.

ULA is several years away from deploying reusable technology, according to the company’s executives in a pre-launch briefing on Friday, raising the expected cost of Vulcan launches.

Nasa initially paid $79mn for Peregrine to ride on Vulcan, but the cost increased to $108mn as a result of delays due to the coronavirus pandemic and a decision to alter the landing site, Nasa officials said.

Celestis has not disclosed the cost of its Enterprise mission. Centaur, the rocket’s upper stage, will begin to travel towards the Sun in about four days’ time. It is carrying the cremated remains and DNA of Star Trek screenwriter Gene Roddenberry, as well as DeForest Kelley (who played Dr McCoy in the series), James Doohan (engineer “Scotty”) and Nichelle Nichols (communications officer Lieutenant Uhura).

The Native American Navajo nation made a last-ditch attempt to halt the flight, arguing that such commercial missions amounted to desecration of the Moon, sacred to many indigenous cultures.