Private company flies to the moon today – you can watch it live here Violence overshadows Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections

Today, Monday, is the day. For the first time in more than fifty years – since the last Apollo mission in 1972 – an American spacecraft is ready to fly to the moon. However, this mission is not carried out by NASA, the US aerospace agency.

“Peregrine Mission One” is a commercial flight operated by the private American space company Astrobotic Technology. The landing module ‘Peregrine’ (English for ‘peregrine falcon’) will take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday morning around 8:18 am using a ‘Vulcan’ rocket from United Launch Alliance.

After orbiting Earth, the vehicle will first enter the moon’s orbit before landing on the surface of the Earth satellite on February 23. But the conditions for the mission are less than ideal.

A mission can be risky

For starters, no private company has ever managed to soft-land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon or any other celestial body. On the other hand, the ‘Vulcan’ rocket has never flown before – even though United Launch Alliance’s previous rockets have worked perfectly.

Astrobotic CEO John Thornton has mixed feelings about the mission. “It’s thrilling and exciting, but I’m also a little scared because the stakes are high,” the Guardian quoted him as saying.

Peregrine is the first mission operated under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. This is a new program in which the space agency pays private companies to bring scientific equipment to the moon.

In addition to some NASA equipment, there is a small rover from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). It will be the first American robot on the moon.

Peregrine has ashes from the creator of “Star Trek” on board

However, Peregrine also has other interesting cargo on board: a copy of Wikipedia, a coin loaded with a Bitcoin and even ‘moon boxes’ from DHL containing books, photos and stones from Mount Everest.

And another special feature is transporting to the moon: the ashes of deceased people, including Gene Roddenberry, the inventor of Star Trek. The space funeral companies Elysium Space and Celestis make this possible.

Slechtvalk must not only carry this cargo into space, but also conduct research on the moon. To do this, an ancient lava flow called Sinus Viscositatis will be attacked. Using various instruments, the moon’s radiation levels, magnetic field and gas layer will be measured to investigate and minimize the risks of future manned missions. It is also being investigated to what extent the moon can provide useful resources.

As part of the CLPS initiative, another space vehicle from the Texas company Intuitive Machines will be launched in mid-February. Since he takes a more direct route to the moon than Peregrine, he could even land earlier.