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Intuitive Machines ’ first mission to the moonlight is now afoot .
The company ’s Nova - C lander , called Odysseus , face-lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the other hours of Thursday morning . The spacecraft will now enter on a eight - day journey to the moon , with a landing attack schedule for February 22 .
Deployment of@Int_MachinesIM-1 confirmedpic.twitter.com/daPrWFkVng
— SpaceX ( @SpaceX)February 15 , 2024
The space vehicle will first enter lunar electron orbit 24 hours before the landing endeavour , and will encircle the moonshine at an elevation of just 100 kilometer . The lander will then endeavor to land near the Malapert A crater , near the moon ’s south pole . Onboard Odysseus are six scientific and research payload for NASA and six commercial-grade loading ; the finish is for those that need approach to the lunar Earth’s surface to be able to operate for up to seven twenty-four hour period , until the lunar dark sets in .
One of the big challenges will derive around 18 hour after launching , when mission controllers will prepare for an “ engine commissioning maneuver , ” when the primary engine will discharge for the first time . That engine uses liquid oxygen and liquid methane as propellent ( like to many rocket ) , which are hard to store but highly efficient . During this manoeuvre , applied scientist will be capable to set the lander ’s trajectory .
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The lander will execute two more Nathan Birnbaum to correct its trajectory before the space vehicle will assay the burn to insert it into lunar orbit . escape controllers will go into this maneuver blind , as the ballistic capsule will be on the far side of the moon and unable to send tangible - sentence updates . For extraction , Odysseus will have to concentrate its velocity by around 1,800 meters per second ; for the final 10 klick descent , the space vehicle will slow up to a rate of one meter per s .
“ Terminal descent is like walking towards a door and closing your centre the last three foot , ” the company saidin a public press outfit on the deputation . “ You bang you ’re close enough , but your internal capitulum must lead you through the door . ”
If the company succeeds , it will be the first metre the U.S. has land a space vehicle on the moon since 1972 and the first sentence a in private made spacecraft has landed on the moon — ever .
This is a vast mo for Houston - based Intuitive Machines , which has been develop technology for the moon — and work on this lander in finical — for years . The company go public via a SPAC unification last February to speed up its plans , which admit this mission and two additional commission to the moon for NASA already under contract .
This morning ’s launching was also a vast bit for NASA , which has paid Intuitive Machines around $ 118 million for the mission under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services ( CLPS ) program . This is just the 2d moonlight mission to venture under the CLPS curriculum ; the first , Astrobotic ’s roving charge last calendar month , did n’t reach the moon due to a catastrophic actuation passing water .
However , NASA officials are take in a farsighted view on the programme , with NASA ’s surrogate administrator for exploration in the skill missionary work directorate , saying in a pre - launch pressing conference that these missions are “ a encyclopaedism experience . ”
“ We did n’t believe that success was assure , ” he say .
