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For the first time since 1972, a spacecraft launched from the United States has softly landed on the surface of the Moon. And, for the first time, this successful extraterrestrial landing was achieved by a spacecraft built and operated by private industry rather than a government space program.
At 6:23 p.m. EST, a 14.1-foot-tall lander resembling a police booth on stilts descended to the moon’s surface on a blue flame inflated from a rocket exhaust. Seconds later, the two-meter lander crunched into the dark floor of Malapert A, a crater located deep in the moon’s southern latitudes.
This robotic traveler, aptly nicknamed Odysseus, carries six scientific payloads on behalf of NASA. But most importantly, the US space agency is not in charge of the mission: Odysseus is the first commercial spacecraft to land safely on another celestial body.
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Odysseus was built and operated by Intuitive machinesa private spaceflight company based in Houston, as part of the company’s IM-1 mission. In addition to NASA equipment, Odysseus transports private customer payloads ranging from a group of sculptures by artist Jeff Koons to a robotic camera for “selfies” built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
And like his namesake from the ancient Greek epics, Odysseus faced trials as he sailed toward the lunar surface. Just hours before landing, two onboard lasers that Odysseus had planned to use to detect the moon’s surface broke down. In response, Intuitive Machines improvised a software patch that allowed Odysseus to control two onboard lasers. an experimental navigation payload built by NASA.
For more than 15 minutes after landing, Intuitive Machines mission control in Houston, Texas, waited in tense silence as flight controllers attempted to establish contact with Odysseus. “Signs of life: We have a return signal that we’re tracking,” joked Tim Crain, chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, director of the IM-1 mission. “We’re not dead yet either.”
Minutes later, Crain confirmed that Odysseus was transmitting from the moon’s surface, albeit weakly. At press time, the reason for the weak signal is still unclear.
IM-1 is the first US mission to soft land on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. And unlike the IM-1, Apollo 17 It was manned. The last robotic soft landing on the Moon took place in January 1968, with the landing of NASA Surveyor 7 lander.
“Odysseus has conquered the moon,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a prerecorded congratulatory message. “This feat is a great step forward for all humanity.”
The mission also achieves some technical firsts. The spacecraft’s main engine, which burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen, is the first of its kind to be used on a moon landing. IM-1 also marks the southernmost lunar landing ever completed. The lunar lander of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, the first in this general region, landed in 69 degrees south latitude, which on Earth would be like landing on the Antarctic Peninsula. IM-1, however, is located more than 80 degrees south latitude, the lunar equivalent of the deep interior of Antarctica.
NASA instruments aboard IM-1 will provide the first in situ measurements of this inhospitable environment, where the sun’s extreme angle on the horizon can create huge swings in surface temperatures as well as exposure to “wind.” solar” of charged particles that are continually belched by our star. This data will include crucial radio measurements which will capture some of the interactions of the solar wind with the surface of the moon.
NASA is targeting the lunar south pole because Some shadow-covered regions contain water ice.—A key resource for long-term human stays on the Moon. For the agency Artemis III Mission, set to launch no earlier than 2026, NASA has contracted SpaceX to land a two-person crew near the lunar south pole.
“(IM-1) is a technical demonstration, so to speak, but it will get our first data on the environment of the moon’s south pole. “This will be critical to designing systems that allow humans to survive and thrive there,” says the lunar scientist from the University of Notre Dame. Clive Neal.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of IM-1 is the precedent it sets for the future of space exploration. For decades, space had been considered the purview of only a handful of government agencies. But thanks to plummeting launch costs and the steady advance of technological progress, it is now cheaper than ever for countries and private companies to build and operate spacecraft, and even send them to interplanetary destinations.
“(IM-1 is) a milestone in commercial development within the United States,” Neal says.
High risk, high reward
At 1:05 am EST on February 15 IM-1 thrown out atop one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Over the next few days, Odysseus traveled a total of more than one million kilometers (621,000 miles) to enter lunar orbit, which he successfully did on February 21. The spacecraft is expected to operate on the Moon’s surface for up to seven days. before succumbing to the darkness and brutal cold of the lunar night.
The mission flies under the NASA flag. Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Initiative, which has encouraged private investment in lunar missions since its founding in 2018. Under CLPS, the agency awards contracts to private companies to deliver NASA scientific equipment and instruments to the surface of the moon. So far, 14 companies have joined the program, which promises to pay up to $2.6 billion for delivery services through 2028.
Unlike traditional NASA programs, the space agency does not own or operate CLPS spacecraft: companies do. In exchange, NASA hopes to achieve lower costs and a higher cadence of missions. To date, NASA has paid Intuitive Machines $118 million under the contract that created IM-1, far less than the agency has spent on robotic landers in the past. And IM-1 is the second of up to five CLPS missions that could end up launching this year.
That said, CLPS companies have been given a steep hill to climb. Historically, only five out of nine lunar missions have been successful, even among those from well-funded government space agencies. The Russian lunar mission Luna-25 will arrive in August 2023. it crashed towards the lunar surface after engine failure. In January, a Japanese lunar lander known as SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) landed safely but at an unexpected anglewhich limited its ability to collect solar energy.
And in exchange for lower costs and more missions, NASA took on a greater risk that any CLPS mission would fail. From the inception of CLPS, NASA officials warned that even a 50 percent mission success rate It was acceptable for the program.
So far that prediction is coming true. In January, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic attempted the first mission under CLPS, Peregrine Mission 1. However, shortly after launch, Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft suffered a propellant leak. The company managed to keep the lander alive in space for a week and a half. but the mission ended with Peregrine burning up in Earth’s atmosphere..
“(NASA) was expecting a failure rate of about 50 percent, and that rate is one in two,” says Laura Forczyk, CEO of the space industry consulting firm. astralitic. “(IM-1 demonstrates) that commercial landers have the capability to land safely on the surface of the moon at a lower cost.”
Peregrine and IM-1 are just the first in a coming wave of commercial lunar missions with increasingly ambitious goals. Later this year, Astrobotic is set to deliver VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), a NASA-built water rover, to the lunar south pole. Intuitive Machines’ next IM-2 mission, also scheduled for later this year, will deliver PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1), a NASA drill designed to excavate the moon’s subsurface.
“These initial missions are more of test missions,” Forczyk says. “We want to make sure the technology is proven and mature before incorporating more important payloads.”
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