By Sydney Dalske
United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket launches on its debut flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on January 8.
This monday, the Vulcan Centaur rocket called Peregrine launched off at the Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida. This model has never been flown before and will be the first commercial lander to touch down on the moon along with being the first to launch from the US in the last 50 years. It is planned to touch down on February 23rd. But there is controversy surrounding this rocket, because it is carrying on it the ashes and DNA of 70 people.
The model was developed by joint venture United Launch Alliance and the lander was developed by company Astrobotic Technology under a contract with NASA.
Astrobotic was paid $108 million by the space agency to develop and fly this experiment to the moon. But they are not the only customers paying for this to happen. Only 5 of the 20 payloads the peregrine will carry belong to NASA. Of the scientific instruments from NASA, 2 are used to monitor the radiation environment while others monitor the lunar soil and super thin atmosphere. The other customers range from nations across the world and a variety of companies.
The human remains that the Peregrine is carrying is for 2 commercial space burial companies, Elysium Space and Celestis. According to Celestis, they will carry ashes to the moon for prices starting at $10,000.
But the move that has been sparked against this is from Navajo Nation, the largest group of Native Americans in the United States. The group argues that the moon is sacred in their culture and allowing remains to touch down on the surface would be an affront to that culture. But the company is following through with their mission despite this.
This mission has been dubbed the Enterprise flight, and on the spacecraft separate from the lander there are 265 capsules human remains and DNA samples from an assortment of people including former US presidents, astronauts and creator of Star Trek tv series.But this payload may not land on the moon, it also may spend an eternity orbiting the sun.
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