US moon lander launched to space aboard Vulcan rocket

A robotic lander built by a private company is bound for the moon in an attempt to make the first US lunar soft landing in half a century, after launching to space aboard a new Vulcan rocket debuted by a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Space robotics firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander launched toward space at 2.18 am EST (7.18am Irish time) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the first flight of Vulcan, a powerful rocket built by the Boeing-Lockheed venture United Launch Alliance.

If all goes well, Peregrine would mark the first US soft landing on the moon since the final Apollo landing in 1972, and the first-ever lunar landing by a private company – a feat that has proved elusive in recent years.

Peregrine is set to land on the moon on 23 February with scientific payloads aboard that will seek to gather data about the lunar surface ahead of planned future human missions.

The launch was a crucial first for United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Vulcan has spent roughly a decade in development to replace ULA’s workhorse Atlas V rocket and rival the reusable Falcon 9 from Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the satellite launch market.