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Intuitive Machines is ready to go to the lunation . The company announced Monday that its first lunar lander has completed all net integration milestone and is now encapsulated in SpaceX ’s Falcon 9 cargo fairing , where it will stay until launching on February 14 .
The delegation launching window opens at 12:57 a.m. EST ; should weather or other issue stay the commission , SpaceX will have three days to execute the launching . The soused timeline comes down to the details of the delegacy : The lander is taking a verbatim trajectory to the moon , and it is targeting a website near the lunar south pole , where specific lighting circumstance for landing place are only available a few daylight each month .
This will be Intuitive Machines ’ first lunar mission . The Houston - based company was ground 11 yr ago by Stephen Altemus , who serves as president and CEO ; Tim Crain , CTO ; and prolific space industriousness entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian . The company was early tosee the commercial promise of the moon ; it received its contract bridge from NASA for this mission back in 2019 . More of late , Intuitive Machines went public via a fusion with a special purpose acquisition companionship in February 2023 , though the transactiongenerated less capitalthan was ab initio image .
There will in all probability be a luck of middle on the mission , give that it comply on the heels of an unsuccessful try by another American company , Astrobotic , whose lander fail to reach the moondue to a fateful propellent leak . That ballistic capsule burn off up in the Earth ’s atmosphereas part of a coordinated reentry planon January 18 .
Both companies were selected for their various mission as part of NASA ’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services ( CLPS ) curriculum , project to solicit exile service to the moon from private industry . In sum , NASA is paying Intuitive Machines $ 118 million to redeem its six science and technology lading to the lunar aerofoil .
The CLPS program is also a key part of the agency ’s Artemis program ; the estimate is that commercial-grade supplier deliver scientific payloads to the surface , which will collect information and inform future crewed moon missions .
Intuitive Machines is hoping to pave the way for commercial winner in the nascent lunar saving , with the company working on not just lunar landers but a lunar data relay armed service , a lunar rover and other technologies and services for both the moonshine ’s Earth’s surface and cislunar outer space .
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“ The IM-1 mission ’s success will lie the foundation for a burgeon lunar economy , spread new possibility for research , commerce , and exploration , ” the company said in a mechanical press outfit published last week . “ By advancing our capableness to manoeuvre on the lunar surface , the mission sets the stage for more challenging endeavors , including the organization of lunar base and the geographic expedition of likely resource . ”
In summation to the six NASA payloads , the lander will also transmit a handful of commercial shipment for customers admit Columbia Sportswear and the contemporary creative person Jeff Koons . The lander , dubbed Odysseus , is expected to run for seven years on the moon before the long and frigid lunar dark circle in .
