First US spacecraft to land on moon since Apollo due to lift off on Monday
A new era of commercial missions to the moon is due to lift off on Monday as NASA gambles on a ride on an untested private lunar lander – alongside human remains and a marketing stunt by a sports drink manufacturer.
Peregrine Mission-1 will be the first US spacecraft with the aim of landing on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
But the robotic lander, which is the size of a garden shed, will be under the control of the American company Astrobotic.
NASA has paid the start-up just $108m (£85m) for five scientific instruments to be carried to the moon, a fraction of the cost of launching its own mission.
The Peregrine lunar lander. Pic: AP
Chris Culbert, who heads NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, said the first flight will kickstart more frequent and cost-effective private trips to the moon’s surface.
“Landing on the moon is extremely difficult and success cannot be assured,” he said. “But these companies are technically rigorous and very business savvy. They are resourceful and driven.”
John Thornton, the head of Astrobotic, thanked NASA for “rolling the dice for commercial”.
The mission is on a tight budget.
To cut costs Peregrine will blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on the first test flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, built by United Launch Alliance.
The Peregrine lunar lander being prepared for encapsulation in a payload. Pic: AP
Instrument designed in UK will study moon’s atmosphere
The launch window opens at 7.18am on Monday morning, UK time, with a good weather forecast. A landing is scheduled for 23 February.
One of the NASA science instruments on board has been designed at the UK’s Open University. It will be used to study the moon’s incredibly thin atmosphere and the movement of water molecules.
Dr Simeon Barber, who led the design team, said it was very different working on a private mission, compared to previous endeavours with space agencies in charge.
“We have had to develop an instrument in a little over a year during a pandemic,” he told Sky News. “That would not have happened under the old way of doing space instrument development.
“But that does allow you to take a bit more risk and make bigger steps forward.”
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Controversy over human remains
The Peregrine mission has attracted controversy because of some of its commercial payloads.
The Navajo Nation of Native Americans has written to NASA demanding the launch should be delayed because there will be capsules on board containing human remains.
The nation’s president, Buu Nygren, said sending cremated remains to the moon “is tantamount to the desecration of this sacred space”.
Joel Kearns, who heads NASA’s exploration science strategy, said the space agency had no control over commercial payloads on board.
But he added: “We take the concerns of the Navajo Nation very seriously and we will be continuing this conversation.”
Mr Thornton, the head of Astrobotic, said he was disappointed the objection had only been made recently, despite the intention of carrying human remains being announced in 2015.
“We have tried to do the right thing at every turn,” he said. “I would have liked to have had this conversation a long time ago. We hope we can find a good way forward.”
Mission will take mementoes to the moon
Eyebrows have also been raised over other commercial payloads.
The delivery company DHL is launching its MoonBox programme, taking mementoes such as photos, novels and even a sample of Mount Everest to the lunar surface.
A can of the energy drink Pocari Sweat will also be on board, containing messages from 80,000 children and a powdered formulation of the product that future astronauts will be able to mix with lunar water.
Astrobotic has shrugged off criticism of the mission’s commercial cargo.
“To be leading America back to the surface of the moon is a momentous honour,” said Mr Thornton. “We have been dreaming of this for 16 years.”
Donald Trump has said he will cancel all executive orders that he claims were signed with an autopen by his predecessor Joe Biden.
The US president alleged Mr Biden was “not involved” in signing the orders and claimed “the radical left lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the presidency away from him”. He did not provide any evidence for his claims.
An autopen is a device which reproduces a person’s signature, allowing them to repeatedly sign documents without having to do so by hand each time.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said: “Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect.
“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States.”
He added: “I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.
“Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”
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Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed Mr Biden was not mentally capable by the end of his term and his staff made decisions on his behalf, using an autopen to sign them off without his knowledge.
Mr Trump has not provided any evidence for his claims, while Mr Biden and his former aides have denied they made decisions on his behalf.
In June, Mr Biden said: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Mr Trump has also used an autopen, but claimed he only used it “for very unimportant papers”.
Pic: Reuters
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Trump trolls Biden with new ‘presidential portrait’
Earlier this year, Mr Trump replaced a portrait of Mr Biden in the Oval Office with a picture of an autopen signing the former president’s name.
The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC is facing a first-degree murder charge.
It follows the death of one of the soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom.
The other soldier, Andrew Wolfe, 24, was taken to hospital in critical condition after the incident on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, West Virginia’s governor said Wolfe remained in a “very critical condition”.
Andrew Wolfe and Sarah Beckstrom. Pic: Reuters
US attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office said the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, now faces charges including one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.
Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge and that Lakanwal had driven across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a revolver.
She said her heart went out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington DC by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree”.
President Donald Trump called Beckstrom, part of the West Virginia guard, a “highly respected” and “magnificent person”.
Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in the state of Washington, where the suspect lived, and other parts of the country, Pirro said.
However, she declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question.
Officials said Lakanwal entered the US in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration programme that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.
People who knew him say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before immigrating to the US.
Kristina Widman, who claims to be Lakanwal’s former landlord, said he had been living in Bellingham, close to Seattle, with his wife and five children.
The #AfghanEvac charity said Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration.
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Trump has called for every Afghan national who entered the US under Biden to be investigated following the shooting of two National Guard troops.
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US to review immigration from 19 countries after shooting
On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration.
The director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible”.
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The President has since said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the US by revoking their legal status.
Organisations that work with refugees are worried that those who fled dangerous situations to start again in America will face a backlash after the shooting.
The US will review green cards issued to the citizens of 19 countries after two members of the National Guard were shot by a suspected Afghan gunman in Washington DC.
Immigration from Afghanistan has also been suspended indefinitely, the White House said, following the double shooting on Wednesday.
Joseph Edlow, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), revealed the order from President Trump.
He wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “At the direction of @POTUS, I have directed a full scale, rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.”
Asked which countries would be affected, USCIS pointed to a presidential proclamation from June listing 19 countries.
The proclamation sought to “fully restrict” arrivals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
It also “partially” restricted arrivals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Pic: Reuters
Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, has been named as the suspected gunman in this week’s shooting and has been detained.
He worked as part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, and reportedly came to the States under a programme meant to help Afghans who’d risked their lives assisting US troops in Afghanistan.
He’s thought to have driven thousands of miles to the capital from his home in Washington state, where he lives with his wife and five children.
Attorney general Pam Bondi called him “a lone gunman” who “opened fire without provocation, ambush style”.
Gunfire in Washington DC sees two National Guard members shot
President Trump described him as a “savage monster”.
He was granted asylum in April this year, according to NBC News.
One of his victims, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died of her wounds, while the other, Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in a critical condition.
The two National Guard members who were shot in Washington D.C. as 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe. Pic: Reuters
Pic: Reuters
Lakanwal reportedly came to the US under Operation Allies Welcome, a programme enacted by former President Joe Biden after he pulled American forces out of Afghanistan in 2021.
Edlow explictly targeted the previous president as he announced the new green card regime.
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He wrote on X: “The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”
Speaking after the attack, President Trump was even more caustic.
He said: “The suspect in custody is a foreigner, who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on Earth.
“He was flown in by the Biden administration in September 2021 on those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.
“His status was extended under legislation signed by President Biden – a disastrous president, the worst in the history of our country.”
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He continued: “This attack underscores the greatest national security threat facing our nation.
“The last administration let in 20 million unknown and unvetted foreigners from all over the world, from places that you don’t even want to know about.
“No country can tolerate such a risk to our very survival.”
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