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Intuitive machines brought it down Odysseus A spacecraft landed on the moon Thursday at 6:23 p.m. ET, becoming the first private company to make a soft landing on the lunar surface.
The IM-1 mission delivered 12 payloads near the Malapert A crater in the Moon’s south pole region after an eight-day journey in space. The lander was originally scheduled for touchdown at 4:24 p.m., but to try to resolve a problem with the onboard laser equipment, flight controllers moved it into an orbit around the moon before beginning the landing sequence. Decided to take extra class. The laser is designed to assess the lunar terrain to identify a safe landing location. Instead, NASA retrofitted a sensor on other instruments onboard to help the lander during its descent.
It seemed a tense few minutes before Intuitive Machines announced that its lander had touched down safely. “I know it was a dangerous case, but we are on the surface, and we are transmitting,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said during a live webcast. “Welcome to the Moon.”
Odysseus Launched on 15th February On the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to provide a steady flow of landers headed to the Moon to deliver government-owned and commercial payloads. With plans to establish a permanent presence on the Moon’s dusty surface, NASA is funding these commercial lunar voyages to enable regular cargo delivery services to the Moon.
NASA packed six instruments Odysseus To study how landers affect the lunar surface during descent and how space weather interacts with the surface. Additional NASA items include a radio astronomy instrument, precision landing technology, and a communications and navigation node for upcoming autonomous navigation tests.
The lander is also carrying a camera system designed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students, which was supposed to detach from the lander before touchdown to capture the moment of landing. Also on board is a 1.3-pound dual-camera system called ILO-X, which will attempt to collect wide- and narrow-field images of the Milky Way from the moon.
Odysseus It is designed to operate for about a week, until the sun sets over the moon’s south polar region.
With Thursday’s successful landing, Intuitive Machines is the first private company to accomplish the difficult feat, after a series of failures by others. In January, astrobotic failed While attempting to reach the Moon due to a valve problem in his spacecraft. In April 2023, Japan’s iSpace Hakuto-R M1 crashed on the lunar surface, and Israel’s SpaceIL Beresheet lander A similar fate happened in April 2019 also.
The Houston-based company has broken the lunar curse and ushered in a new era for the space economy.
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