Small, Florida-based start-up Moon Express just received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to send a robotic lander to the moon—a task that NASA hasn't accomplished in more than four decades.
The FAA's approval, which makes Moon Express the first private company to have clearance to land on Earth's closest cosmic neighbor, will undoubtedly revolutionize the industry. Although exclusive to the company, the approval will certainly serve as an important regulatory guide for deep-space commercial activity in general, said Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards.
"This is not only a milestone, but really a threshold for the entire commercial space industry," Richards told Space.com. If successful, Moon Express will be the fourth entity to land on the moon (the first three were the United States, the U.S.S.R. and China).
The company submitted the application for the lunar mission back on April 8, 2016—reviews by the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Communications Commission followed. The mission seeks to unlock the "immense potential of the Moon's valuable resources," explained the company in a publicly released statement.
The company also hopes to win the
Google Lunar XPrize, a competition to land a privately funded robotic vehicle on the moon by the end of next year. To win, a team must successfully land the vehicle and have it move at least 1,640 feet while beaming high-definition video and photos back to Earth. First place wins $20 million, second place wins $5 million and other milestones might earn participants $5 million. As of now, there are 16 teams in the running.
The unmanned scientific spacecraft is expected to reach the moon in the second half of 2017, and we just cannot wait.
