“A mission that provides something to prepare for future manned missions,” explains a journalist

The goal for NASA to use private companies to transport its cargo to the Moon is, obviously, to lower prices, explains Olivier Sanguy, editor-in-chief of space news at Cité de l’espace From toulouse.

“It’s truly a mission that provides something to prepare for future manned missions”, explains Thursday February 15 on franceinfo Olivier Sanguy, editor-in-chief of space news at the Cité de l’espace in Toulouse. A rocket carrying the moon lander from a young American company, Intuitive Machines, took off early in the morning.

The company hopes to become the first private company to successfully land on the Moon using the Odysseus private space module.

franceinfo: Why did NASA partner with a private company for this mission?

Olivier Sanguy : The goal of this mission is part of this general return to the Moon, where all countries want to go to the Moon, particularly those who are partners with NASA via the Artemis program. [dont l’objectif est d’amener un équipage sur le sol lunaire d’ici 2026]. In this Artemis program, NASA has decided to entrust part of its lunar cargo to private individuals. In other words, instead of NASA carrying out its mission entirely, it says to private individuals: “I have to take such and such an instrument in this lander called Odysseus. How many ? What price ?” And then, she has a price list for doing part of her mission.

“Basically, it’s lunar carpooling.”

Olivier Sanguy, editor-in-chief of space news at the Cité de l’espace in Toulouse

at franceinfo

NASA’s goal is to lower the price since it is not the only one paying for the ticket. So the mission also carries private payloads, such as a work of art by Jeff Koons, who is a fairly well-known artist.

Behind this mission, there is a young Texan company. It’s called Intuitive Machines. If it succeeds, it will be the first private company to land on the Moon. Would this be a turning point in the conquest of space?

Yes, because we saw that it wasn’t easy at all to land on the Moon! Even countries that knew how to do it had problems. I am thinking in particular of Russia, which has failed. Now, the company Intuitive Machines was co-founded by someone who is well-known in space, Kam Ghaffarian. He is an entrepreneur, an American engineer who was born in Iran and who also founded Action Space, a company which makes private flights in the International Space Station and which obtained the contract to manufacture spacesuits for the Artemis program of The NASA. So he knows how to invest in space. If it works, it will have both the spacesuits, a lunar lander, and the market for private flights in low orbit to the ISS on the American side.

Is the United States trying to defend its position in the conquest of space? While several countries are interested in this conquest, such as China, India, Japan…

On the geopolitical level, NASA boss Bill Nelson says there is a race with China to land on the Moon in the 21st century, with men and women. So, there is clearly a new momentum towards the Moon and its conquest. It is less marked, all the same, than the first race to the Moon between the United States and the Soviet Union, but the geopolitical angle is not absent. Then, you should know that the good places to land easily with scientific interest not far away, they have been listed and there are around thirteen of them, and the Chinese, for their part, have listed them too, and these are the same, which is logical by the way.

And precisely where will this mission take place, and what will it be used for?

The place where this mission will land is a place that has been relatively little explored at this stage. Odysseus will land in the Malapert crater, which is 69 kilometers wide, 300 kilometers from the South Pole and next to the Malapert massif. What is interesting is that it is one of the areas selected for the first Artemis missions. So, basically, it will help to identify the terrain a little. There are also quite a few NASA experiments on board the lander which are used to measure what happens when we land, to see how we raise the lunar dust. So it’s truly a mission that provides something to prepare for future manned missions.

And Europe in all this? Did she drop the moon?

No, not completely because Europe is still the leading partner of the Artemis program. You should know that NASA’s Orion capsule, which will transport astronauts to the Moon, cannot go to the Moon without the European Space Agency’s service module. So, the Americans are not going to the Moon without Europe, very present in this new momentum towards the Moon.