Thank you for following our live coverage of today’s launch. United Launch Alliance had a lot at stake with the first flight of their new Vulcan Centaur rocket, but all the indications are that it has successfully deployed the first of its payloads – the Peregrine 1 lunar lander.
That lander is attempting to carry Nasa scientific instruments and some commercial payloads to the moon in what would be the first lunar landing by the US for half a century, and the first landing on the moon by a private company. It is now in a highly elliptical orbit and is anticipated to reach the moon on 23 February. See you then!
Peregrine lunar lander sends first signals from orbit after successful launch
Astrobotics have reported that it has acquired signal from the Peregrine lunar lander.
Another tense moment for the mission has been successfully completed.
After the lander separated from the Centaur rocket there were a couple of expected minutes of silence before a signal from the craft was received at Astrobotics mission control, where it sparked some emotional scenes.
Peregrine lunar lander successfully separates from Vulcan Centaur rocket
The Peregrine lunar lander has successfully separated from the Vulcan Centaur rocket which has delivered it into space.
United Launch Alliance spokesperson Amanda Sterling reported that confirmation came 51 minutes and six seconds into the mission.
The CEO of ULA, Troy Bruno, said “I am so thrilled. I am so proud of this team. Oh my gosh, this has been years of hard work. So far this has been an absolutely beautiful mission. Back to the moon. Our team has done such a good job. This is just … it’s hard to describe.”
The lander will now go into a highly elliptical orbit in order to position it for its anticipated soft lunar landing on 23 February.
There will be one further engine burn of the Centaur craft in order to position itself to deploy another commercial payload, a memorial flight containing, among others, the remains of prominent people associated with the Star Trek franchise.
There has been a round of applause in mission control, which suggests they are happy with how the manoeuvre has gone.
“Everything is looking good” reports mission control. In about two minutes the Peregrine lunar lander will separate from the rocket, which is at present orientating itself into the right position.
The craft is now on its second engine burn, with cut-off due shortly.
We are now 10 minutes away from the separation of the Peregrine moon lander from the Centaur stage of the mission.
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US Peregrine 1 moon lander on way after successful launch of Vulcan Centaur rocket
The Peregrine 1 moon lander, the first built by a private company, is on its way to space after a successful launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket by United Launch Alliance at Nasa’s Cape Canaveral.
The moon lander is the first attempt by the US to land anything there for 50 years, and is carrying an array of Nasa scientific equipment to carry out studies on the moon once it arrives at Sinus Viscositatis, the Bay of Stickiness.
The rocket still has two engine burns to complete in order to position its payloads correctly for the rest of the mission, and is currently coasting in low Earth orbit. It was the first launch of the Vulcan Centaur system, which is intended to replace ULA’s Atlas V rocket, and which has been in development for a decade.
The lander is about 1.9 metres high and roughly 2.5 metres across and is the first mission to fly under Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, a new scheme in which the space agency pays private companies to deliver scientific equipment to the moon.
Peregrine carries five Nasa payloads and 15 others. One, a shoebox-sized rover from Carnegie Mellon University, is set to become the first US robot to take a spin on the moon.
Today’s mission is also carrying a commercial payload containing the remains of prominent stars from the television show Star Trek as a space memorial.
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Both engines have shown normal shut-down. There will now be a 27 minute and 30 second coasting period before the next engine burn. “All systems continue to operate normally” reports ULA.
It is after the next engine burn that the Peregrine 1 lander will be sent off on its mission to the moon.
“Both engines firing normally” reports mission control.
The Centaur part of the mission is now in the first of three engine burns. This puts the craft into low Earth orbit. The subsequent burns are about putting it into the right place to launch the payload components.
After this burn there will be a roughly thirty minute coast, then a four minute burn. That will be followed by another thirty minute coast and a much shorter twenty second burn.
Main engine cut-off will occur in about five minutes. A ULA engineer reports that a quick look at the data says “Everything looks perfect. Everything is flying just like what we’d expect.”
500 seconds into the mission and “everything is still looking good” according to mission control. The rocket is 235 miles above the Earth, travelling at 1,150 mph.
Here is a screengrab from Nasa’s video of the launch. The next important moment in the mission is an engine cut-off in about ten minutes time.
The separation has happened, and there is a bit of data loss, mission control reports, but they have “two good engines” and a successful launch and successful first phase.
The next big moment will be when the first and second stages of the rocket separate. It is now 47 miles above the Earth. “Everything looking good” mission control continues to report.
The rocket is now half lift-off weight, and mission control continues to report “Everything is looking good”.
The solid booster rockets have successfully jettisoned. The main rocket engines are “operating normally”.
The rocket is now passed Mach-1 and is supersonic.
The Vulcan rocket is reporting good signals back to mission control who say “Everything is looking good 60 seconds into the flight.”
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Vulcan Centaur rocket carrying Nasa moon lander lifts off in Florida
We have lift off! The first launch of the United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket, carrying a payload including a Nasa moon lander, has taken place in Florida.
If the mission continues to be a success, the Peregrine 1 lunar lander will be the first commercial venture to land on the moon, and the first moon landing by the US for fifty years. It is expected to reach the moon at the end of February.
Launch vehicle, payload and launchpad have all been given go for launch. “The team are not working any issues,” says ULA’s Amanda Sterling.
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We are two minutes away from the launch of the Vulcan rocket. You should see some ignition about seven seconds before take-off, and the launch pad will be deluged with coolant too. The main engines should be running about three seconds before the appointed lift-off time.
You can watch a live stream of the launch in this blog – you may need to refresh the page for a play button to appear.
There will now be a countdown, during which further pre-flight checks occur. T-minus seven minutes and counting …
The launch director has said “You have permission to launch” after about 30 teams gave a “Go!” when asked.
The weather report continues to say that the probability of the weather violating launch conditions is 15% during the 45-minute launch window. Ground winds are 15-20 knots, and the temperature is 14C (57F).
They will shortly begin polling the teams to get the go-ahead to start the countdown.
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This might be the first launch of the Vulcan rocket, but it is the 159th launch by United Launch Alliance.
The Vulcan Centaur rocket carrying the Peregrine 1 moon lander is still on track to launch at 07:18 GMT (2.18 EST / 18.18 AEDT).
Tory Bruno, the CEO of United Launch Alliance, has said he is “so proud of our people. And I think we had exactly the best possible team.”
It is the first launch of the Vulcan rocket, and the US is attempting to land something on the moon for the first time in 50 years.
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This from our graphics team shows the history of where people have successfully landed on the moon, and where the Peregrine 1 mission is aiming for …
It is worth noting again that United Launch Alliance has designated this one of two test launches of the Vulcan rocket before they can certify it as operational.
Tory Bruno, who is president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, which built the Vulcan Centaur rocket, posted this picture earlier looking up at the engines from below.
Looking up and into the bells of glory…. #VulcanRocket #FlameTrench pic.twitter.com/ZwvsbTBajl
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) January 8, 2024
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It isn’t just scientific equipment on board today’s mission, as my colleague Ian Sample noted:
Along for the ride is a copy of Wikipedia, a physical coin loaded with one bitcoin and DHL “moonboxes” carrying momentos ranging from novels and photographs to a small lump of Mount Everest. Also onboard, courtesy of the space memorial firms Elysium Space and Celestis, are cremated human remains and DNA, some of which belong to Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek.
In fact, the firm putting the remains related to Star Trek into space have assembled an, if you’ll excuse the pun, stellar cast, as capsules containing the remains of Roddenberry, his wife, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, as well as original series stars James Doohan (Scotty), DeForest Kelley (McCoy) and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) will be on board.
It is an interesting example of how commercial spaceflight and scientific missions are co-developing, with the high profile inclusion of Star Trek luminaries serving to advertise that being blasted into space as a memorial is also a service available, at a cost – financial and carbon – to us mere mortals.
Here are some pictures of the rocket at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida from the last couple of days. The 62m tall (202 ft) Vulcan Centaur rocket was rolled out to the launchpad on 5 January ahead of today’s planned launch, which is currently on track for about half-an-hour’s time.
ULA: mission is on track for launch ahead of final weather check
United Launch Alliance spokesperson Amanda Sterling has said everything is on track for launch at this stage.
She said:
We are currently holding at T-minus seven minutes as part of our planed 60 minute hold, and the team is not working any issues at this time.
The Vulcan booster is fuelled to flight level with super-chilled liquid oxygen and liquid methane … and the ULA team is on track for an on-time lift off at 2.18am Eastern (7.18am GMT).
We are about five minutes away from the final weather briefing, and at the moment our weather continues to look good through the 45 minute launch window we have available this morning.
All eyes may be on getting the lunar lander up into orbit, but actually, there is a lot at stake for United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) rocket today. The payload is sitting on previously untested technology – this is the first time a Vulcan rocket has been launched.
As Reuters reports, the US Space Force is a key customer for Vulcan, and it sees today’s launch as the first of two verification flights required before it can put national security payloads aboard.
“It’s really, really important for ULA’s forward success … Everything is better for them if it goes well,” George Sowers, ULA’s former chief scientist and one of the architects of its Vulcan programme, said of the mission. “But it’s certainly not the end of the world if it doesn’t.”
ULA’s two operational rockets, the Atlas V and giant Delta IV Heavy, are set to retire in the coming years, leaving Vulcan the lone successor to carry on the company’s perfect mission success rate. The new rocket already has a multibillion dollar backlog of about 80 missions.
The Atlas V’s retirement was put in place when its Russian-made RD-180 engines – stemming from a partnership established in the 1990’s – drew concern from US lawmakers after Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Falcon 9, a reusable launcher offering cheaper rides into Earth’s orbit, has eroded ULA’s monopoly on national security missions.
ULA was formed in 2006 in a merger of Boeing’s and Lockheed’s rocket programmes. The two aerospace giants own the company in a 50-50 split, though they have been seeking a sale of the business for roughly a year.
UAL have said that the countdown is currently on a “planned hold”, and that they are on schedule for take-off. On the weather, there is a 15% chance of a “violation”, which means there is an 85% chance of them attempting the launch during this window.
Now, it may seem odd with all of modern technology that something as old fashioned as “the weather” can delay rocket launches. But there are very good reasons to exercise caution. Ian Sample wrote about this for us in 2004.
He noted that at Cape Canaveral, around a third of the launches delayed by bad weather are down to the threat of lightning strikes. It may sound cautious, but lightning can leap huge distances, and if it hits a rocket, it could knock out its guidance systems. In 1987, an Atlas/Centaur rocket was hit by lightning shortly after take-off and was destroyed mid-air.
Winds are also an issue. Most rocket manufacturers specify the strongest winds they are happy to launch in, often less than 40 knots. And even just cloudy days have historically caused problems.
Apollo 12 launched through clouds in 1969 and was struck twice by lightning, with scientists subsequently concluding that the rocket had triggered the lightning strikes itself.
Ian Sample did point out that this does raise some questions about why Nasa have historically based their launches in Florida … one of the most prolific places in the US to find thunder storms.
Nasa’s plans for the moon haven’t met with universal acclaim. Aside from the carbon footprint of space missions, there are concerns about human exploitation of the moon damaging its scientific value, as the Observer’s science editor Robin McKie reported at the weekend:
Astronomers have warned that an unrestricted rush to exploit the moon could cause irreparable damage to precious scientific sites. Gravitational wave research, black hole observations, studies to pinpoint life on tiny worlds that orbit distant stars, and other research could be jeopardised, they say.
“The issue has become urgent,” Martin Elvis, of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, told the Observer. “We need to act now because decisions made today will set the tone for our future behaviour on the moon.”
This point was backed by astronomer Professor Richard Green, of the University of Arizona. “We are not trying to block the building of lunar bases. However, there are only a handful of promising sites there and some of these are incredibly precious scientifically. We need to be very, very careful where we build our mines and bases.”
An illustration of the problem facing scientists was highlighted by Green: “A few deep lunar craters have been discovered to have been shrouded in shadow since the moon formed billions of years ago. Sunlight has never reached their floors and so they are unbelievably cold – probably only a few dozen degrees above absolute zero. And that makes them scientifically very valuable.”
Craters like these would be ideal for housing delicate scientific instruments, and in addition, it is thought these lightless craters may contain water in the form of super-cold ice that did not evaporate as it did elsewhere on the moon during its early history. These sunless seas of ice could reveal precious information about the history of water’s arrival.
However, craters filled with ice would also be priceless in the eyes of lunar colonisers and would become irresistible targets for companies and astronauts setting up colonies.
Read more here: Moon’s resources could be ‘destroyed by thoughtless exploitation’, Nasa warned
Here is a little bit more from my colleague, science editor Ian Sample, on the scientific value of the mission:
If all goes well, Peregrine’s instruments will measure radiation levels, surface and subsurface water ice, the magnetic field, and the extremely tenuous layer of gas called the exosphere. The readings are expected to help minimise risks and harness the moon’s natural resources when humans return to its surface.
The mission will analyse the composition of the lunar exosphere and monitor how it changes over the eight or so Earth days that the lander will operate. Researchers hope to see the effect of natural cycles, such as temperature swings from 100C to -100C, and the lander’s own activities.
As a potential resource for future missions, water is a key molecule to find. The mission may reveal how water molecules are released from the surface during daytime and trapped again at night, shedding light on the circulation of lunar water.
As mentioned, the mission is due to last the better part of two months. If launch is successful, it is planned that it will go through a an Earth orbit period, then cruise to the moon, have a lunar orbit phase, and then it will descend and land in Sinus Viscositatis.
That translates to Bay of Stickiness, although it does also sound slightly like something your respiratory system could get diagnosed with. It is named after the lava formation there.
It absolutely isn’t a foregone conclusion that it will get there, however. Astrobotic CEO John Thornton, the people who built the lander, told CNN last week “This really is like a 50-50 shots on goal kind of an approach – where it’s really more about the industry succeeding, not any specific one mission.”
Peregrine 1 is heading to the moon armed with an array of scientific instruments.
The lander is about 1.9 m high and roughly 2.5 m across and will be carrying some very fancy-sounding equipment including the Laser Retro-Reflector Array (LRA), a Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS), the Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS), a PROSPECT Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS), and a Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS).
It was built by Astrobotic, and is sitting on top of a rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, so Nasa has very much been the commissioning body here, rather than in control of all the parts of the mission as we’ve been used to for much of the lifetime of US space ventures.
Peregrine is attempting to be the first commercial mission to achieve a soft moon landing
My colleague, Science editor Ian Sample, teed up our coverage of the mission with this piece on Friday:
Even in the white-knuckle world of space exploration, the mission is considered risky. While Nasa has instruments aboard the robotic lander, this is a commercial operation. No private company has ever achieved a soft landing on the moon or any other celestial body.
“There’s a lot riding here,” said John Thornton, the chief executive of Astrobotic, the Pittsburgh firm leading the mission. “It’s a mix of emotions. There’s thrill and excitement, but I’m also a bit terrified because there’s a lot on the line.”
Adding to the nerves is the fact that the Vulcan rocket Peregrine sits on has never flown before, though its manufacturer, United Launch Alliance, has had a 100% mission success rate with its predecessor rockets.
Peregrine is the first mission to fly under Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, a new scheme in which the space agency pays private companies to deliver scientific equipment to the moon. Peregrine carries five Nasa payloads and 15 others. One, a shoebox-sized rover from Carnegie Mellon University, is set to become the first US robot to take a spin on the moon.
Read more here: Peregrine mission almost ready for attempt to put US landers back on the moon
Welcome …
Welcome to our live coverage of the launch of Peregrine 1. It is the first time that the US has attempted to land something on the moon for fifty years, and while it has some scientific instruments on board from Nasa, it is a commercially operated flight and the first time a commercial company has attempted to put something there.
Peregrine 1 isn’t going to the moon in a hurry though – if it successfully launches today then it is expected to land on 23 February – but launch is one of the most dangerous and risky parts of any space missions. Scientists, and the business people behind the venture, will be anxious that years of work designing the lander doesn’t go awry.
We will be following the launch here on this live blog, with lift off scheduled for 07:18 GMT (2.18 EST / 18.18 AEDT), in just over an hour’s time.
