Five decades after the last of the Apollo missions, the Moon is once again in the spotlight space exploration. Only now the POT It is not the only one interested or qualified to carry out lunar exploration.
The number of astronauts who have walked on the Moon has been the same for more than 50 years., only 12 people have had that privilege and they are all Americans. But that is about to change.
Governments and commercial companies from Europe and the Middle East to the South Pacific are launching missions to orbit the Moon or land on its surface.
The historic binational competition between the American and Soviet space agencies for lunar exploration has become global.
Despite the success of the United States' Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, to date only five nations have landed on the moon.
China is one of the most ambitious countries in its goal of reaching the Moon.
China versus the United States
After two successful orbital missions in 2007 and 2010, China landed the unmanned Chang'e 3 on the moon in 2013.
Six years later, Chang'e 4 became the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon.
The robotic Chang'e 5 returned lunar samples to Earth in 2020 and Chang'e 6, launching in May this year, will bring the first samples from the far side of the Moon.
And the Asian country's plans do not end there.
“China openly aspires to send a couple of its astronauts to the Moon before 2030,” says space journalist Andrew Jones, who specializes in the Chinese space industry.
“There are demonstrable advances in a number of areas necessary to carry out such a mission, including the development of a new crewed launch vehicle, a next-generation crewed spacecraft, a lunar lander, and expanding ground stations,” says Jones. .
“It's a tremendous task, but China has shown that it can plan and execute long-term lunar and human spaceflight projects.”
It is not surprising that the recently announced delays in the Artemis lunar program of NASA, which postponed plans to take astronauts to the lunar surface until September 2026 At the very least, they have led to talk of “moon race” between the United States and China.
“I think China has a very aggressive plan,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said in a media conference call about the Artemis timing modification.
“I think they would like to land before us, because that might give them some PR. But I don't think they will.”
China, of course, may also experience delays in its release schedule.
“China needs a super-heavy launcher to start putting large pieces of infrastructure on the Moon,” Jones says.
“Your Long March 9 rocket project has undergone changesso this may delay the first missions from the year 2030 to the early or mid-2030s.”
Other missions
In August 2023, India became the fourth country to land on the Moon with the uncrewed Chandrayaan-3 landing near the lunar south pole.
Following its success, the president of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced his goal of sending astronauts to the Moon by 2040.
Meanwhile, The Japanese Slim mission recently placed its Moon Sniper lander on lunar soil and became the fifth country to reach Earth's closest neighbor.
The Japanese space agency Jaxa is also nearing the end of negotiations to send a Japanese astronaut to the Moon as part of the US Artemis program.
Other countries – such as Israel, South Korea and numerous member states of the European Space Agency (ESA) – have also placed robotic spacecraft in lunar orbit.
NASA recently announced that the UAE's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center would provide an airlock for Gateway, its planned lunar-orbiting space station for the Artemis missions.
The reasons for returning to the Moon now are several: from scientific knowledge and technological advances to the prospect of accessing potentially useful lunar resources and political or economic value.
The UK space industry, for example, was extremely strong during the recession.
But in such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration.
It will no longer be the exclusive domain of national space agencies, as commercial companies also want to participate.
Race with privateers
Although China launched the first commercial mission to the Moon in 2014, the small, privately funded Manfred Memorial Moon Mission was a microsatellite (61 cm x 26 cm x 10 cm) for a lunar flyby built by LuxSpace in Luxembourg.
The first commercial lunar mission planned by the United States was much more ambitious.
In January of this year, the Astrobotic companybased in Pittsburgh, launched the Peregrine 1 Mission. It was the first American spacecraft to land on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Unfortunately, a “critical loss of propellant” occurred shortly after launch, it had to return home without landing, and it burned up in Earth's atmosphere over a remote part of the South Pacific Ocean.
As a result, the next US commercial mission, Intuitive Machines IM-1, which launched on February 15 and intends to place its Nova-C lander on the Moon, has moved from second place to potentially first place.
“As partners in advancing lunar exploration, we understand and share the collective disappointment of unforeseen challenges,” said Intuitive Machines President and CEO Steve Altemus.
“It is a testament to the resilience of the space community that we continue to push the limits of our understanding, accepting the risks inherent in our quest to open access to the Moon for the progress of humanity.”
The United States declared the Moon a strategic interest in 2018Does Altemus consider its commercial mission as the beginning of a lunar economy?
“At that time there were no lunar landing modules or lunar programs in the United States,” he says.
“Today, more than a dozen companies are building landers, which is a new market. In turn, we have seen an increase in the construction of payloads, scientific instruments and engineering systems for the Moon.
“We are seeing the economy start to catch up because there is the possibility of landing on the Moon. Space requires enormous human effort and will always contain a government component because they have a strategic need to be there.
“But now there is room, for the first time in history, for commercial enterprises there.”
In recent years, India has also seen a boom in space startups such as Pixel, Dhruva Space, Bellatrix Aerospace and Hyderabad's Skyroot Aerospace, which launched India's first private rocket in 2022.
In October 2023, a private Australian company, Hex20, announced a collaboration with Skyroot Aerospace and Japan's ispace, which will attempt its second robotic lunar landing later this year.
The collaboration aims to stimulate demand for affordable lunar satellite missions.
But when it comes to the Moon, footprints and flags on its soil continue to generate the biggest headlines.
The four astronauts who will enter lunar orbit on Artemis II (NASA's Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, plus Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen) appear in the immersive show Moonwalkers. London.
The show, written by British filmmaker Chris Riley and actor Tom Hanks (who played famous astronaut Jim Lovell in the movie “Apollo 13”), highlights NASA's collective effort to land astronauts on the Moon and anticipates that Artemis will do the same. same.
Former NASA Apollo flight director Gerry Griffin recently called the Artemis program “wonderful.”
“I'm worried about funding,” he said, “it's always going to be an issue.”
But Griffin is optimistic and has complete confidence in his astronauts.
“We have the best. They are really good. We have to move on. It's time to come back.”
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c25d2wyyjeno, IMPORTING DATE: 2024-02-21 14:12:03
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