NASA Will Return to the Moon With Two Robotic Landers This Year

The Moon, Earth’s only natural satellite, has recently become a center of attraction for countries such as China and Russia as the two teamed up to establish a joint moon base. To not lose its throne to rivals in space, NASA is now aiming to return to the Moon with two robotic landers and tiny rovers, according to UPI.

NASA’s final mission to the Moon was Apollo 17 launched back in 1972 as part of the space agency’s Apollo program. Ever since then, no spacecraft belonging to the US has landed on the Moon. As China continues its research on the Moon with rover Yutu-2, NASA seeks to blast off new missions to conduct research and scientific experiments on the lunar surface. The space agency, in this regard, is funding nine contractors. Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic are the two of them.

“The first priority is, I hope it’s successful — that is the number one priority above all else,” said John Thornton, CEO of the Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, in an interview with UPI. Astrobotic named its vehicle CubeRover and has a mission to deliver space robotics technology and planetary missions to the Moon’s surface. Thornton believes CubeRover will make history as the first US mission to the lunar surface after the Apollo landing.

NASA is returning to the Moon

However, Thornton is not sure as the other company Intuitive Machines (IM) funded by NASA announced it was about to complete launch preparations of Nova-C lander.

“This was a critical step towards returning the United States to the lunar surface on our IM-1 mission this year,” said Peter McGrath, Vice President of Business Development at Intuitive Machines, in a press release. “It is also key to validating our fully commercial lunar distance communication and data relay network that supports future IM missions as well as other players in the emerging lunar economy.”

Agreements with Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines cost $79.5 million and $ 77 million, respectively. NASA plans to launch crewed missions by 2025 following an uncrewed test flight around the Moon this March or April. So NASA-supported two robotic missions will examine sites where landing is possible prior to Artemis’ manned flight.

In 2018, then NASA President Jim Bridenstine said, “We are building a domestic American capability to get back and forth to the surface of the Moon.”

NASA picked Elon Musk’s SpaceX to land the next astronauts on the Moon under the Artemis initiative.