According to the information released by the United Launch Alliance (ULA) on the X platform, the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle has been successfully launched at 3:18 pm Taiwan time on Monday (8th), carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander into space, and has successfully separated.
According to a press release from Astrobotic, the company has successfully contacted the Peregrine and has begun to receive telemetry data. Astrobotic CEO John Thornton stated, “The Peregrine has been activated, established communication with Earth, and is currently moving towards the moon in space.”
According to Reuters, if the plan goes smoothly, the Peregrine will be the first American lander to soft-land on the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972, and the first private company lander to reach the moon. The Peregrine is expected to land on the moon on February 23, carrying scientific payloads to collect data about the lunar surface before planned future human missions.
The journey to the moon for Dogecoin and Bitcoin
With the launch of the Vulcan rocket, Dogecoin and Bitcoin have also embarked on their “space journey.” The Dogecoin Foundation stated that the “cargo” on the rocket includes a physical Dogecoin coin, and BitMEX exchange, in collaboration with its founder Arthur Hayes, will also send a physical Bitcoin coin into space on the same historic lunar journey.
Astrobotic also confirmed in a post reply that there is indeed a Dogecoin in their MoonBox. MoonBox is a service provided by the company for users to send memorabilia to the lunar surface.
After a series of delays lasting five years, the Vulcan rocket finally launched today. According to U.Today, the complex journey of Dogecoin and Bitcoin to the moon, from the initial launch to a high elliptical orbit, and finally landing on the lunar surface, will be divided into nine different stages.