Will commercial companies take control of the missions of the moon?

Last year, Astrobotic, an American company, announced that it would be sending a lander aboard a United Launch Alliance Rocket launcher in 2019, in time for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. . In July of this year, an Israeli organization, SpaceIL, declared that its spacecraft will be launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in December and land on the moon in February 2019. Also in July, Jeff Bezos' company for a Space ship landing. And this week, a Japanese company, ispace, announced that it had signed a contract with SpaceX for two lunar missions; the first, in 2020, would deliver a probe orbiting the moon and the second, in 2021, would attempt to land a spacecraft that would deploy several rovers to explore the surface.

For these societies, the moon is not the nationalist dream of the Apollo era. It's a market. Instead of leaving flagpoles in the regiments, they want customers, in the government and commercial sectors, who will pay them to deliver their equipment to the moon or exploit their crust to find minerals. They want to help turn ice on the moon into usable resources, like fuel for a mission in the deep space. And they want the work to generate revenue, just like the rocket launch for SpaceX.

Remember, of course, that deadlines in the space sector are always subject to change and often do. And the commercial moon industry has recently experienced a minor setback. In 2007, a Google sponsored contest challenged privately funded teams to develop, launch and land a mobile on the Moon. The contest was canceled in January of this year and the $ 20 million was not claimed, when it became clear that no one would respect the 2018 spring deadline. The unsuccessful contest seemed to indicate that Lunar Missions privately financed were not yet realistic. but some of the finalists, like SpaceIL and ispace, have taken a step forward.

The NASAThe culture of optimism is too good.

"It's something you need to think about right now if you want to get up early and establish your presence there," says Aaron Sorenson, global communications manager at ispace. "We can not be this dream start-up who is excited to go to the moon. We need a sustainable business.

You may be wondering where the largest space agency in the world is.

Under the Trump administration, The NASA has made a serious effort towards business activity on the moon. In one case, support came at the expense of a government mission.

In April, The NASA announced that it would no longer fund the Resource Prospector, a mission that would have sent a small vehicle to extract materials at the moon's poles in search of ice and minerals. Resource Prospector, already in development for almost a decade, was The NASAThe only robotic mission planned on the surface of the moon. Jim Bridenstine, the The NASA administrator, said that some of the instruments that were designed for the mission could be used in trade-financed efforts. The same day The NASA announcing the disappearance of Resource Prospector, the agency has published a notice soliciting proposals from entrepreneurs seeking to develop a payload transport technology to the moon.