Double moonshot mission begins as lunar landers blast off on SpaceX rocket
Share:
Two private missions heading for the moon have blasted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The lunar landers launched in the middle of the night from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre and are the latest to try to land on Earth's nearest neighbour. America's Firefly Aerospace and Japan's ispace shared the ride to save cash but parted company an hour later and will take different routes.
Elon Musk's SpaceX posted images of the landers - named Resilience and Blue Ghost - drifting off into the darkness of space. The powerful Falcon 9 rocket landed back on a droneship in the Atlantic less than nine minutes later. SpaceX said Blue Ghost would take about 45 days to get to the moon's Mare Crisium, where it will conduct experiments for NASA.
They include testing a device that could help future moonwalkers keep abrasive particles off their suits and equipment as the space agency bids to put humans back on the moon. NASA astronauts stuck on International Space Station say they 'don't feel like castaways'.
NASA latest: Stranded NASA astronauts speak from International Space Station. NASA spacecraft survives closest-ever approach to the sun. NASA is paying Firefly $101m (£82.7m) for the mission and another $44m dollars (£36m) for the experiments. Meanwhile, the Japanese probe, Resilience, will take a less fuel-intensive four to five months to get to an area called Mare Frigoris, meaning 'Sea of Cold'.
