Fifty-two years after the end of the manned mission to the moon, the United States once again launched its lunar program but suffered a major failure. This is because the development of manned spacecraft and spacesuits contracted by private companies has been hampered, and the existing manned spacecraft also have safety risks. It is understood that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) adopted the strategy of letting multiple private companies contract part of the lunar mission separately in order to reduce the cost of the lunar landing program, but due to the poor progress of multiple contractors, NASA's lunar mission has been repeatedly postponed.
Postpone it for another year
NASA postponed a manned mission to the moon for at least a full year because a private aerospace company canceled its lunar landing program. On Tuesday, local time, NASA announced that it would postpone the "Artemis 2" manned mission around the moon to September 2025 and the "Artemis 3" manned lunar landing program to September 2026 due to increasing technical challenges.
NASA originally planned to arrange for four astronauts to complete a flight around the moon in November this year, that is, the "Artemis 2" manned mission around the moon; It will then send American astronauts to the moon at the end of 2025 to realize the Artemis 3 manned lunar landing program.
Over the past decade, NASA's moon landing program has been repeatedly delayed, adding billions of dollars in costs. The total cost of the program will reach $93 billion by 2025, according to a U.S.** audit report. So far, NASA has only successfully conducted one Artemis mission. In 2022, the Orion spacecraft was launched into lunar orbit with a very large launch vehicle, and then returned to Earth.
NASA** said it faces a range of technical and re-entry challenges, such as the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft, where engineers found problems with the spacecraft's heat shield and various internal components after reviewing flight data from the Artemis 1 mission.
The day before, less than 24 hours after the launch of the "Peregrine Falcon" lunar lander, which carries the vision of the United States to land on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years, there was a "serious leak" of propellant due to a malfunction, and the US Aerospace Robotics Technology Corporation, which developed the "Peregrine Falcon," had to announce that it had "abandoned its attempt to send it to the moon."
On Tuesday, local time, the U.S. Aerospace Robotics Corporation confirmed that its "Peregrine Falcon" lunar lander has no chance of a soft landing on the moon, which means that the first attempt by the United States to land on the moon in more than 50 years ended in failure.
Amit Quescharia, head of NASA's lunar and Mars exploration programs, said the delay in the manned mission to the moon shows that NASA is aware that partner companies "do have R&D challenges."
Technical glitches
As the first lunar mission led by a commercial space company in human history, the "Peregrine Falcon" lunar mission is also highly expected by the United States, believing that this lunar mission will "lay the ground" for the United States' return to the moon program. Relevant experts said that in the long run, the failure of this mission will affect the commercial transportation of the U.S. plan for lunar exploration, and the U.S. return to the moon plan is bound to be postponed in combination with the previous poor progress in the development of other systems.
According to public reports, although the new US carrier rocket "Vulcan Centaur," which was used to launch the "Peregrine Falcon," was a complete success in its first mission, the experience of the "Peregrine Falcon" after it was put into the predetermined orbit can be described as "twists and turns." Aerospace Robotics said in an official statement that after the Peregrine Falcon entered orbit, the first instructions to adjust the solar panels could not be executed, which caused the Peregrine Falcon to be unable to aim at the sun to recharge. At the critical moment when the "Peregrine Falcon" was about to lose contact with the ground due to power failure, the project team of the Aerospace Robotics Company carried out emergency rescue, and the temporary maneuvering instructions formulated for the "Peregrine Falcon" were implemented, and the "Peregrine Falcon" was able to adjust the angle of the solar panels to complete the charging and successfully "continue its life".
However, it is difficult to fundamentally solve the problem of attitude control and propulsion system failures that make the "Peregrine Falcon" unable to face Japan. In the statement, Aerospace Robotics said that the failure caused a serious leak in the propellant of the Peregrine Falcon. The project team is trying to stop losses, but given the realities, they will prioritize maximizing access to the scientific data that can be gathered and evaluating what alternative tasks can be performed. CNN reported that Aerospace Robotics believes that the Peregrine Falcon may end up operating for only 40 hours. What can be done now is to get the Peregrine Falcon as close to the Moon as possible before it loses its attitude towards the Sun and loses power. "This means that the mission to the moon, originally scheduled for February 23, has lost its possibility. The report said.
The private sector is skeptical
On the moon in 2024, NASA bets on private companies. According to the U.S. "Wall Street**", during the implementation of the Apollo program, NASA controlled the overall situation, invested a large number of staff and huge funds. Now, half a century later, NASA has begun to let the private sector take the lead in design and operations, and the way the U.S. space industry operates has changed dramatically. Including the Peregrine Falcon, five landers made by American enterprises carrying NASA equipment will attempt to land on the moon this year. According to the American journal "Nature", NASA has gradually transformed from a "first-class party" to a "big customer".
According to Quartz Finance, U.S. institutions have been working closely with the private sector during the Apollo program. But in recent years, NASA has subcontracted much of its work more directly to private companies. Some technology companies already have the ability to design and build spaceships and rockets, and they only need to put forward requirements and then submit tenders. Flannery, an astrobiologist at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, believes that the strategy of the United States is to "put all your eggs in many baskets" and see which of these companies is the most reliable and cost-effective.
Quartz Finance believes that the benefits of this "new model" include: helping to save public funds; The project management model of private enterprises is relatively advanced and the work efficiency is higher; Businesses can share the risk of the project. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation says that by outsourcing lunar exploration projects to the private sector as much as possible, the sector will be able to "put good steel to good use" and devote its limited resources to training cutting-edge scientists and engineers.
In 2018, NASA announced the creation of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to outsource "Earth-Moon transportation" to businesses, and the Peregrine Falcon is one of the tasks in the project. The New York Times said on the 8th that Zebson, who had served as deputy administrator of NASA's Science Mission Council, had previously used ball games as an analogy, saying that every task of CLPS was like shooting, and the lower the cost, the more shots there were, even if not every time it could be scored.
However, landing on the moon on a low budget proved to be much more difficult than many people thought. According to the New York Times, the failure of the Peregrine Falcon on the moon raises questions about NASA's strategy of relying on private companies to conduct scientific experiments on the lunar surface. According to the analysis of Wall Street**, it is difficult to guarantee the success rate of the space project led by the company, and the mission to the moon is already difficult. NASA also needs to take risks in its partnerships with the private sector, such as the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket that Boeing is involved in building and has a significant budget overrun, with NASA covering the excess.