Lunar lander launch scheduled early Jan. 8

United Launch Alliance started testing on the Vulcan Centaur rocket Friday ahead of a targeted July launch, space officials said. (United Launch Alliance)

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. – A NASA news conference Thursday morning precedes a lunar lander launch scheduled the following week at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

United Launch Alliance hopes to get the inaugural mission of its Vulcan Centaur rocket off the ground at 2:18 a.m. Monday, Jan. 8.

The Vulcan is set to replace ULA’s Atlas V rocket. Its first certification mission, CERT-1, seeks to carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander from Launch Complex 41 to the surface of the moon, having it touch down somewhere in the celestial body’s northern area in late February. It’s an exercise meant to advance NASA’s research and bolster its exploration capabilities before getting people back on the moon before 2030.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch the first certification mission from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Cert-1 flight test includes two payloads. The first is the Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One (PM1) for Astrobotic as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface. The second payload is the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission known as the Enterprise Flight.

VULCAN TO LAUNCH FIRST CERTIFICATION MISSION (CERT-1) (ulalaunch.com)

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The launch had originally targeted Christmas Eve 2023. This followed a delay after the upper stage of a Centaur exploded that March during testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. A hydrogen leak was blamed, said to have caused a crack in the launch vehicle’s 18-foot-in-diameter tank.

A science media briefing is set for 11 a.m. Thursday with the following participants:

Paul Niles, CLPS project scientist, NASA Headquarters

Chris Culbert, CLPS program manager, NASA’s Johnson Space Center

Nic Stoffle, science and operations lead for Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer, NASA Johnson

Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator, Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System, NASA’s Ames Research Center

Richard Elphic, principal investigator, Neutron Spectrometer System, NASA’s Ames Research Center

Barbara Cohen, principal investigator, Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Daniel Cremons, deputy principal investigator for Laser Retroreflector, NASA Goddard

Niki Werkheiser, director, Technology Maturation, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters

News 6 will stream the briefing at the top of this story when coverage begins.

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About the Author:

Brandon, a UCF grad, joined the ClickOrlando team in November 2021. Before joining News 6, Brandon worked at WDBO.