US officials seem to be on the verge of making history by giving the nod to the first private space mission, Moon Express, to go beyond the orbit of our planet. The news was reported by representatives familiar with the details and published on the Wall Street Journal.
The US government's approval would remove the regulatory hurdles faced by Moon Express to send an approximately 10 kilograms package, comprising of scientific hardware, to the lunar surface sometime over the course of next year. As per a report, the endorsement by US officials would also make the Moon Express mission the first for-profit projects for exploration of the solar system, giving a huge federal boost to unmanned space investigation ventures.
According to officials in the know-how of the information, the anticipated decision will probably set significant diplomatic and legal precedents for how the government will safeguard the compliance of such nongovernmental projects with long established and prevalent space treaties. The set clauses will also, in all likelihood, apply to spacecraft in the future that will be used for the purposes of tracking space debris to mining asteroids, among a wide range of other reasons.
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