Rocket Ready To Launch NASA's Peregrine And Instrument Lander To The Moon

Centaur Rocket for NASA's CLPS initiative (Doc. ULA)

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) said that thewield Centaur rocket, part of the Cert-1 mission, has been reviewed. The rocket is ready to launch on Monday, January 8.

Cert-1 is a mission under the initiative of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) belonging to the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). This rocket will carry twenty payloads and the main payload is Astrobotic's Peregrine Mission-1.

Although NASA has set the launch on January 8, they are still ensuring the weather pattern. They can only take off from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station if the percentage of the weather reaches 85 percent.

Of the many payloads carried by fire, only five instruments belong to NASA. Of the five instruments, three of them will work together to study volatile substances on the surface of the moon.

These three instruments are the Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS), the Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS), and the Peregrine Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS). Although water is one of the volatile substances, these three instruments will not focus on water.

"We don't expect natural water at this Peregrine landing site, but the lander will paint the surface with its rocket exhaust on its way down," said NSS Principal Researcher Richard Elphic, quoted from Spacenews.

By studying volatile substances, the NIRVSS, NSS, and PITMS research teams believe that their findings will help humans to better understand how water molecules migrate and end up in cooler lunar polar regions.

All the contents, both lander and instrument, have been packaged in composite fairing measuring 5.4 meters and 15.5 meters high since last December. The payload lifter's Sling has also been paired to the top stage of theition rocket.

This rocket will be launched with two methane-fuel boosters, namely the solid rocket booster GEM 63XL. The team from ULA has confirmed that this rocket is ready to launch with all its payloads and booster launchers.