- Kenya airport whistleblower fears for his life
- Sheinbaum to take office as Mexico's first woman president
- Scientists fear underfunded Argentina research on verge of collapse
- US port officials gird for strike despite last-minute bargaining
- With 118 dead from Hurricane Helene, Biden defends US government response
- Breeder who tried to create enormous trophy sheep jailed in US
- Qatar Airways seeking 25% stake in Virgin Australia
- US port officials gird for strike as labor talks stay stuck
- As toll crosses 100, Trump puts Hurricane Helene at election center stage
- US Fed Chair sees 'further disinflation' in economy
- Epic Games sues Google and Samsung over app store
- Officials see no shortages from likely US port strike
- UK families of Gaza hostages warn Lebanon attack 'takes focus away'
- Shares in Stellantis, Aston Martin skid on profit warnings
- Dali prints found in London garage sold at auction
- ECB chief backs bank mergers amid UniCredit, Commerzbank talk
- China stocks soar on stimulus, but US and Europe retreat
- 100 dead in storm Helene damage, flooding across US southeast
- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
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- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
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- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
First US lunar lander in five decades blasts off on private mission
The first American spacecraft to attempt to land on the Moon in more than half a century blasted off early Monday -- but this time, private industry is leading the charge.
A brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:18 am (0718 GMT) for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander.
"Successful #VulcanRocket staging, ignition," ULA said on X, formerly Twitter, following the launch.
Eric Monda, ULA's strategic planning director, described the launch as "spot on."
"It was so cool. I ran outside to watch the launch," he said on NASA's live stream.
If all goes to plan, Peregrine will touch down on a mid-latitude region of the Moon called Sinus Viscositatis, or Bay of Stickiness, on February 23.
"Leading America back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since Apollo is a momentous honor," Astrobotic's CEO John Thornton said ahead of the launch.
Until now, a soft landing on Earth's nearest celestial neighbor has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies: the Soviet Union was first, in 1966, followed by the United States, which is still the only country to put people on the Moon.
China has successfully landed three times over the past decade, while India was the most recent to achieve the feat on its second attempt, last year.
Now, the United States is turning to the commercial sector to stimulate a broader lunar economy and ship its own hardware at a fraction of the cost, under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
- A challenging task -
NASA paid Astrobotic more than $100 million for the task, while another contracted company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is looking to launch in February and land near the south pole.
"We think that it's going to allow... more cost effective and more rapidly accomplished trips to the lunar surface to prepare for Artemis," said Joel Kearns, the US space agency's deputy associate administrator for exploration.
Artemis is the NASA-led program to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, in preparation for future missions to Mars.
Controlled touchdown on the Moon is a challenging undertaking, with roughly half of all attempts ending in failure. Absent an atmosphere that would allow the use of parachutes, a spacecraft must navigate through treacherous terrain using only its thrusters to slow descent.
Private missions by Israel and Japan, as well as a recent attempt by the Russian space agency, have all ended in failure -- though the Japanese Space Agency is targeting mid-January for the touchdown of its SLIM lander launched last September.
Making matters more fraught is the fact that it is the first launch for ULA's Vulcan, although the company claims a 100 percent success rate in more than 150 prior launches.
ULA's new rocket is planned to have reusable first stage booster engines, which the company, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, expects will help save costs.
- Science instruments, human remains -
On board Peregrine is a suite of scientific instruments that will probe radiation and surface composition, helping to pave the way for the return of astronauts.
But it also contains more colorful cargo, including a shoebox-sized rover built by Carnegie Mellon University, a physical Bitcoin, and, somewhat controversially, cremated remains and DNA, including those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, legendary sci-fi author and scientist Arthur C. Clarke and a dog.
The Navajo Nation, America's largest Indigenous tribe, has said sending this cargo to the Moon desecrates something that is sacred to their culture. Though they were granted a last-ditch meeting with White House, NASA and other officials, their objections failed to remove the cargo.
The Vulcan rocket's upper stage, which will circle the Sun after it deploys the lander, is meanwhile carrying more late cast members of Star Trek, as well as hair samples of presidents George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
Y.Ponomarenko--CPN