Space travel: The moon in the far distance?

On Monday, the US space probe “Peregrine” set off for the moon, but it will never get there. Now the next setback: NASA is postponing a manned flight to the moon. What are the current missions like?

Everything started well. The launch of “Peregrine” on Monday was intended to usher in a “new era of space travel to the moon and beyond,” said the spokeswoman during the broadcast of the lift-off. The rocket worked perfectly – but its payload, the probe on its tip, did not.

Their on-board engines go so crazy that they make it impossible to touch down on the lunar surface.

German lunar experiment provides data

But even without the crowning glory of a successful landing on the moon, the mission is already a success for the German Aerospace Center (DLR). There, in the Department of Radiation Biology, Thomas Berger is pleased with how the mission has gone so far.

The DLR contributed an experiment called M42 – named after the Orion Nebula in the night sky – to the “Peregrine” mission. “It measures the radiation on the way to the moon and is now sending these measurement data back to Earth,” says Berger. The instruments will probably be able to do that until Thursday before “Peregrine” runs out of fuel. Even without landing, at least this part of the mission was successful.

But the bad news from the moon doesn’t let up: Yesterday the US space agency NASA announced that it doesn’t want to send four astronauts around the moon at the end of the year – for the first time since the 1970s. A little over a year ago, everyone would have seen the test flight of “Artemis I,” said Bill Nelson. “It was so successful that further tests are necessary,” was the strange logic of the NASA boss.

No need for haste

Amit Kshatriya from NASA’s Exploration Systems Department explains exactly what went wrong: “When we returned to Earth, more material came off the heat shield of the ‘Orion’ crew capsule than the engineers had expected. We are currently investigating the cause Reason and hope to have completed our investigations in the spring.”

“Artemis I” took place in December 2022. Since then, NASA has been studying the heat shield. And examined. And examined. NASA boss Nelson justifies these postponements: “In order to give the Artemis teams more time, we will not launch ‘Artemis II’ this year, but only towards the end of next year. The follow-up mission “Artemis III” is not scheduled to take people to the moon until the end of 2026 -Bring to the South Pole.

Other countries are overtaking the USA

Delays lasting several years for all sorts of reasons that a private space company like SpaceX might have eliminated within weeks. Elon Musk’s company plans to send its new Starship into space for the third time next month.

After these recent postponements, it is more than questionable that the next people on the moon will have a stars-and-stripes flag with them – but not for Bill Nelson: “I’m not worried that China will land on the moon before us could,” weighs the NASA administrator.

China does have a very ambitious program. And sending people to the moon before the US would be a huge PR coup. “But I don’t think they can do it.” Next up is neither the Americans nor the Chinese: On January 19th, the unmanned Japanese probe SLIM will touch down on the moon – or not.