On March 3rd, I packed up our Writers on the Moon payload–a duplicate from Peregrine–and sent it off to Astrobotic to be included in the Moonbox aboard Griffin Mission One!
Since our original payload burned up in the atmosphere, I had to get new SD cards for the digital payload (which of course I had backed up), but the real trick was finding a new moonchip and mini paper book.
Fortunately, I had a couple duplicates of both the moonchip and the mini book that I’d tucked away, probably because I knew space is hard and you always need a backup. If you look closely at the moonchip, the original one didn’t have a hole but the one flying on Griffin Mission One does–that’s because the duplicate was originally an “extra” from the limited set my husband commissioned for the mission and was intended to be a keepsake in case someone lost theirs (all the original manifest authors should have a moonchip of their own with the number of their manifest on it).
I hadn’t remembered making duplicates of the mini book, so that was a pleasant surprise. Here’s what it looks like:
Astrobotic has had a tough year — to be honest, I wasn’t sure the company would even be around to launch another mission. That’s part of why I’ve been keeping expectations low. But Astrobotic keeps chugging along! There are new payloads on Griffin (in addition to our Moonbox) and when the company sent the call out to send in our Moonbox payload, I knew they were at least planning on flying this mission.
Still not sure the exact timeline on that, but likely within a year.
So shipping the payload doesn’t mean we’re about to launch — but I will definitely let you know when we have a timetable for that.
Godspeed little Writers on the Moon payload: Take Two!
