Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic's first lunar lander will lift off on Christmas Eve aboard United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said.
Bruno told attendees at the CNBC Technology Executive Committee Summit that the rocket company aims to launch the Vulcan rocket for the first time between December 24 and December 26. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said: "The reason why it is Christmas Eve is to respect orbital mechanics."
The rocket will carry Astrobotic's Lark robotic lander and Celestis' hosted payload. ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has a backup window in January if the rocket fails to take off in December.
The launch of Astrobotic's Peregrine lander is part of a $79.5 million contract awarded by NASA in 2019 under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program. The lander, which is a little over 6 feet tall and 8 feet wide, has a payload capacity of 120 kilograms and will deliver scientific payloads to the northern part of the moon on behalf of the space agency.
Bruno said that while the mission date appears to be an important holiday, part of the reason is Astrobotic's mission requirements. "We're going to a part of the moon where they need to very carefully control the lighting conditions and also have to maintain radio communication with the Deep Space Network," he explained. "When you combine those two together, we only have a few days a month."
This mission has been a long time coming: Astrobotic first announced its selection of ULA to launch the lander in 2019; at the time, the companies said the launch would take place in 2021.
But multiple technical delays for Vulcan, including a final-stage explosion during testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama in March, delayed the launch. The BE-4 engine being developed by Blue Origin exploded again during rocket engine testing, further delaying the flight. Even before December, ULA still has a lot of work to do: The company is currently qualifying the Vulcan final stage, which should be completed by November.
The first mission, called Certification-1, was one of two certification flights required by ULA to meet Space Force requirements.
The mission will launch from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida. ULA hopes to quickly increase the frequency of Vulcan launches, with the goal of launching every two weeks by mid-2025. Some of the demand will come from government, but ULA also sees demand from commercial customers: ULA won a huge contract from Amazon in 2022 to launch part of its massive Kuiper satellite internet megaconstellation, but the price of the launch contract has not been disclosed.