Two setbacks this week in the United States in China’s race to the Moon illustrate the risks of NASA’s plans to bet on a new strategy heavily dependent on private companies.
Recent delays in the US space agency’s Artemis lunar program and a propulsion problem that derailed US company Astrobotic’s robotic lunar rover highlight the difficulties faced by the only country to ever set foot on the Moon.
The United States plans to send astronauts back to the Moon at the end of 2026. The country had been aiming for 2025, but pushed back that forecast this week. China, on the other hand, is aiming for manned landings in 2030. Before humans arrive, each space power plans to send several smaller robotic missions to examine the lunar surface. The Chinese program, funded by the country’s government, has achieved a number of results.
The Astrobotic lunar rover carried seven NASA instruments that would be used to survey the lunar surface. Even if the lander doesn’t reach the surface intact, three more NASA-sponsored private missions are planned this year, including a second attempt by Astrobotic.
NASA is leaning heavily on other companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX – which will pay for the use of its Starship HLS lunar landing spacecraft – to reduce the cost of its missions. The last manned trips to the Moon were the US Apollo missions more than half a century ago, when NASA owned all the spacecraft involved.
“I think China has a very aggressive plan,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said Tuesday after announcing the postponement of the Artemis mission.
“I think they would like to land before us,” he said. “But I actually don’t think they can do that.”
Source: Terra
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