MUMBAI: Five months after Chandrayaan-3 executed a flawless soft landing on the moon on August 23, 2023, India is set to leave its footprint on the moon once again. This time, it will be through the world’s second private mission to the moon, the US-based Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which will lift off on Monday at 12.48 pm (IST), from the Cape Canaveral Air Force station with more than 80,000 messages from kids all over the world, and a piece of Mount Everest among the 21 unique payloads from different countries.
The flight has an Indian touch because the mission director, is Sharad Bhaskaran, who has early India connections. If all goes according to plan, Bhaskaran will command the touchdown of Peregrine on February 23 on the moon’s Bay of Stickiness.
Peregrine is expected to touchdown shortly after sunrise on the moon and has a mission span of 192 hours.
Bhaskaran has been quoted as saying: “As mission director of Astrobotic technology, my job is to lead the engineering team in the development and a commercial robotic lunar lander capable of delivering payloads to the moon.”
Bhaskaran was born three years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969, and spent his youth poring over Star Trek and reading sci-fi.
The first private lunar mission was by Israel’s Space IL, which was not fully successful, in April 2019. According to Astrobotic, the children’s messages are included in what is known as “Pocari Sweat Lunar Dream Time Capsule” from Japan.
The piece of Mount Everest is a part of a German payload called DHL Moonbox, which will also have photographs, novels and works by students as personal mementoes to the lunar surface.
Seychelles is sending a physical coin-loaded with one Bitcoin and the Mexican Space Agency will have the first Latin American scientific instrument.
This second private lunar mission, however, has some firsts — it will be the first US lunar landing since the final mission of Nasa’s Apollo programme — Apollo 17 — more than 50 years ago.
It will be first to launch under Nasa’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative, and the Peregrine lander will be carried by United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will be its first flight.
The flight has an Indian touch because the mission director, is Sharad Bhaskaran, who has early India connections. If all goes according to plan, Bhaskaran will command the touchdown of Peregrine on February 23 on the moon’s Bay of Stickiness.
Peregrine is expected to touchdown shortly after sunrise on the moon and has a mission span of 192 hours.
Bhaskaran has been quoted as saying: “As mission director of Astrobotic technology, my job is to lead the engineering team in the development and a commercial robotic lunar lander capable of delivering payloads to the moon.”
Bhaskaran was born three years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969, and spent his youth poring over Star Trek and reading sci-fi.
The first private lunar mission was by Israel’s Space IL, which was not fully successful, in April 2019. According to Astrobotic, the children’s messages are included in what is known as “Pocari Sweat Lunar Dream Time Capsule” from Japan.
The piece of Mount Everest is a part of a German payload called DHL Moonbox, which will also have photographs, novels and works by students as personal mementoes to the lunar surface.
Seychelles is sending a physical coin-loaded with one Bitcoin and the Mexican Space Agency will have the first Latin American scientific instrument.
This second private lunar mission, however, has some firsts — it will be the first US lunar landing since the final mission of Nasa’s Apollo programme — Apollo 17 — more than 50 years ago.
It will be first to launch under Nasa’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative, and the Peregrine lander will be carried by United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will be its first flight.