Last week, the little red cabin with white knots took off aiming for the moon. The Swedish artist Mikael Genberg is behind the project. But now it turns out that the launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida was done without a necessary permit under the Space Act, Siren reports.
The news agency refers to a notification about suspected crime, sent from the Swedish Space Agency to the government.
– As far as I know, this is the first time that we have submitted a notification like this. It is the government that decides whether the case should proceed to the police and prosecutors and must give permission for a possible prosecution, says Johan Marcopoulos, communications manager at the Swedish Space Agency, to Siren.
Japanese craft complicate
According to the letter from the Swedish Space Agency, the artist’s company applied for the permit in September, whereupon the authority forwarded the application with the request that it be granted. But when the craft with the cabin left Earth on January 15, there was no permit from the government in place.
The vessel that the cabin traveled with is Japanese, which complicates the matter, according to Johan Marcopoulos.
– One issue that has been brought up to date is the fact that it is about a part of a craft that is not Swedish. We have assessed that there are two elements that require a permit, partly the broadcast itself, partly when the house is placed on the surface of the moon. The second step is not relevant until we know that this craft lands successfully and is capable of deploying the house, he tells Siren.