The Many Planned Moon Landings of 2023

It never gets any easier to watch: a control room full of engineers, waiting anxiously as the robotic probe they’ve worked on for years nears the surface of the moon. Telemetry from the spacecraft says everything is working; landing is moments away. But then the vehicle goes silent, and the control room does too, until, after an agonizing wait, the project leader keys a microphone to say the landing appears to have failed. The last time this happened was in April, in this case to a private