A New Space Race: Private Companies Are Going To The Moon

The Moon has inspired many poets and intrigued scientists for centuries. In 1969, Neil Armstrong, while stepping on the moon, famously said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." But, budgetary concerns stopped NASA's Apollo missions in 1972.

After five decades, there is now a new space race with old and new players eyeing a piece of the Moon. In 2023, India's Chandrayaan 3 earned praise from around the world, with its successful landing on the lunar surface. The Japanese, the Europeans, the Chinese are all now headed to the moon. Now, two private companies are racing to get the U.S. back in the game, more than five decades after the Apollo program ended.

ARTEMIS CALLING AMERICANS

Astrobotic Technology is ready to launch its lander to the Moon aboard the newly built Vulcan rocket this Monday. Hot on their heels, Intuitive Machines gears up for a mid-February liftoff, piggybacking on a SpaceX Falcon. Not only are Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines looking to end America's moon-landing drought, they're vying for bragging rights as the first private entity to achieve a soft landing on land the lunar surface. These missions are a prelude to NASA's Artemis program, which aims to put the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon by 2025.

THE RACE TO MOON

The private sector's flight to the moon is just one part of the moon relay. The year 2024 will see quite a lot of activity on the moon's dusty surface. Japan's Hakuto-R lander is set to touch down in April, while Russia's Luna-25 mission will attempt to collect lunar soil samples. South Korea and Luxembourg too are also joining the moon race with their own space missions.

WHY LANDING ON THE MOON IS SO DIFFICULT?

Landing without crashing on the moon is no easy feat. Not much atmosphere exists to slow down spacecraft, and parachutes are blatantly ineffective. This implies that a lander must navigate past dangerous craters and cliffs while descending using thrusters. The Americans and the Russians have done that in the past, but doing so now requires a newer approach. Russia's first moon mission for 47 years ended in failure last August, with the crash of its Luna-25 spacecraft, dashing Moscow's hopes of beating India to the unexplored south pole of the moon. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spacecraft landed there on August 23, 2023. ISRO is now working on a more challenging lunar mission. Chandrayaan-4, mission slated for launch in the next four years. This ambitious mission aims to return to earth with lunar samples.

A NEW SPACE RACE BETWEEN U.S. & CHINA

During the cold war it was the Americans & Russians who raced against each other, developing newer technologies and powerful rockets. But it is also an extremely costly venture. While NASA continues to pour in billions of dollars, the Russian space agencies lack the required funding. With the geopolitics changing in the past few decades, it's the Chinese who are eager to take the pole position in the new space race. China's space program has made impressive strides in recent years, successfully landing a rover on the Moon in 2019 and launching its own space station in 2022. The U.S, meanwhile, maintains a comfortable lead in the final frontier. It has bigger telescopes and 3,400 active satellites compared to China's 535. But the Chinese are making rapid strides towards the final frontier.