Lifeboat Foundation

Completing the commissioning maneuver that demonstrated the performance of the main engine, which will be used to place the spacecraft into lunar orbit and, later, land on the moon, was a major milestone for the mission.

“Once we get through that and we know how the engine performs in space, I think our confidence actually goes up that we will have a successful landing on the moon,” Trent Martin, vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines, said of that engine test in a Feb. 12 interview.

The IM-1 mission is carrying six NASA payloads as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program under a $118 million task order. It is also carrying six payloads for other customers, ranging from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to the artist Jeff Koons.

Intuitive Machines said its team programmed the lander’s wide and narrow field-of-view cameras “to take five quick images every five minutes for two hours, starting 100 seconds after separating from SpaceX’s second stage,” adding that “out of all the images collected, Intuitive Machines chose to show humanity’s place in the universe with four wonderful images we hope [will] inspire the next generation of risk-takers.”

In a mission update, Intuitive Machines said that Odysseus “continues to be in excellent health” as mission IM-1 makes its way toward the moon for a touchdown scheduled to take place on Thursday. “Flight controllers are preparing planned trajectory correction maneuvers to prepare the lander for lunar orbit insertion,” the company added in its message.

If Intuitive Machines manages to perform a successful soft landing with Odysseus, it will become the first private company to achieve the feat. It will also mark the first soft lunar landing by a U.S. spacecraft since the final Apollo mission in 1972.

Odysseus is one of the first landers to participate in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to deliver science and technology payloads to the lunar surface using commercial partners. The CLPS program is a key component of NASA’s Artemis program, which plans to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by the end of the 2020s.

Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX’s second stage on Intuitive Machines’ first journey to the Moon under @NASA’s CLPS initiative. pic.twitter.com/9LccL6q5tF — Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 17, 2024

Odysseus is carrying six NASA experiments and technology demonstrations, along with six private payloads, on its current IM-1 mission. The lander is expected to touch the moon on February 22, near the lunar equator.

The spacecraft, which finally launched on February 15, is expected to touch down on February 22.

SpaceX relocates incorporation to Texas amid legal challenges, reflecting Elon Musk’s strategic vision for growth and innovation.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX moves to Texas, signaling a strategic shift in corporate strategy amidst legal battles.

Humanity’s quest to explore—and, perhaps eventually, colonize—outer space has prompted a great many ideas about how precisely to go about it.

While conventional wisdom suggests that space launch via rockets is the best way to send human beings into orbit, other “non-rocket” methods have been proposed, including a futuristic “space elevator.”

The concept of a space elevator—essentially a sky-high cable that would let humans climb into space—has been championed by some industry experts as a way to overcome the astronomical costs associated with sending people and cargo into space by rocket, says Alberto de la Torre, assistant professor of physics at Northeastern.

A U.S. company’s 14-foot-tall spacecraft began speeding to the moon, where the vehicle is expected to try to make history by pulling off the first-ever commercial lunar landing.

The lander, called Odysseus and developed by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, isn’t carrying crew, but rather is ferrying scientific and commercial payloads. It was launched at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX rocket and later separated from the upper part of that vehicle to start a roughly 239,000-mile journey, according to a livestream.

The spacecraft had a successful launch and connected to radio communications with the company’s mission operations center in Houston, Intuitive Machines said.

SpaceX has launched a mission to the moon that will make history if it achieves a successful landing on the lunar surface week.

A privately-owned spacecraft headed for the Moon has blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was used to launch the lunar lander, nicknamed Odysseus, with the hope that it will land on the Moon’s south pole – where scientists predict there could be a source of water. If all goes well, it will be the first time a private firm has successfully landed on the Moon. It would also be the first US mission in 51 years to complete a soft touchdown on the lunar surface. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog #Space #Moon #BBCNews