US heads back to the Moon -- with a commercial spaceship
A Houston-based company is set Thursday to attempt to land America's first spaceship on the Moon in more than 50 years, as part of a new fleet of NASA-funded commercial landers intended to pave the way for astronauts to return to Earth's celestial neighbor later this decade.
If all goes well, Intuitive Machines will guide its hexagon-shaped robot Odysseus to a gentle touchdown near the lunar south pole at 2230 GMT.
Flight controllers are expected to confirm landing around 15 seconds after the milestone is achieved, with the event live streamed on the company's website.
As it approaches the surface, Odysseus will shoot out an external «EagleCam» that captures images of the lander in the final seconds of its descent.
A previous moon shot by another US company last month ended in failure, raising the stakes to demonstrate private industry has what it takes to repeat a feat last achieved by NASA during its Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University told AFP that the US was rebuilding its capacity to explore the Moon after its decades-long absence.
«There's often a prejudice that says, we did it in the past, why can't we do it now?» said Pace, a former member of the National Space Council.
«Each generation has to learn how to do things,» he added. «You have a leg up, you understand the technology, the problems and so forth. But that's all in books. That's not flight tests. That's not flight experience, where you know it in your fingertips.»
Luna
