Joe Marino/UPI Credit/Alamy Live News
THIS is the year of the moon, and it is already kicking off. The first launch of the Vulcan rocket on 8 January marked the begin of what could be the greatest deluge of missions the moon has ever seen, thanks to NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme.
The first CLPS mission is Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, an uncrewed craft lofted on Vulcan that hoped to attain the lunar floor on 23 February. It might have been the first time a personal agency touched down on the moon, but Peregrine suffered a gas leak and received’t now make it…