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Tag: lunar lander

  • SpaceX’s lunar lander could be ‘years late’ for a planned 2027 mission to the moon

    SpaceX’s lunar lander has run into a snag and may not be ready for a mission to the moon that was scheduled for 2027, . The company’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) is a variant of the that has been designed to transport astronauts between lunar orbit and the surface of the moon.

    “The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing,” said NASA safety analyst Paul Hill following a visit to SpaceX’s Starbase facility.

    The underlying issue seems to be regarding cryogenic propellant transfer, as the SpaceX team has yet to figure out a way to refuel Starship in low Earth orbit before it heads to the moon. This will be the first version of the vehicle capable of such transfers and the work has been slowed down by ongoing engine redesigns.

    There’s no timetable as to when the team will get this sorted. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell that the project won’t be “as hard as some of my engineers think it could be.”

    This delay has caused some to speculate that it could when it comes to manned lunar missions. The country has developed its own lunar vehicle called Lanyue that could land on the surface by 2030.

    Also, this isn’t the first time the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has missed deadlines regarding a return to the moon. The company said in 2023 that it would attempt in-orbit refueling by early 2025. That didn’t happen. Musk said earlier this month that SpaceX will “demonstrate fuel reusability next year” which also isn’t happening.

    The Artemis 2 launch, however, . This mission will send four astronauts around the moon, but not onto the surface. It has been over 50 years since the US put boots on the lunar surface. The last manned mission to the moon was in 1972.

    Lawrence Bonk

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  • Why it’s so difficult to land on the moon, even 5 decades after Apollo

    Why it’s so difficult to land on the moon, even 5 decades after Apollo

    Hundreds of thousands of miles beyond Earth, a phone booth-size spacecraft is en route to take on a challenge no vehicle launched from the United States has attempted in more than 50 years.The lunar lander called Odysseus or IM-1, created by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, landed on the moon this week. Coverage of the historic event was livestreamed on NASA TV.Success is not guaranteed. Had it failed, Odysseus would have become the third lunar lander to meet a fiery demise on the moon in less than a year. Russia’s first lunar lander mission in 47 years, Luna 25, failed in August 2023 when it crash-landed. Hakuto-R, a lander developed by Japan-based company Ispace, met a similar fate last April.Overall, more than half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure — tough odds for a feat humanity first pulled off nearly 60 years ago.The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled, or “soft,” landing in February 1966. The United States followed shortly after when its robotic Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the moon’s surface just four months later.Since then, only three other countries — China, India and Japan — have achieved such a milestone. All three reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat just within the past six months, long after the U.S.-Soviet space race had petered out. The U.S. remains the only country to have put humans on the lunar surface, most recently in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission.But the U.S. government hasn’t even tried for a soft landing — with or without astronauts on board — since then. Private space company Astrobotic Technology had hoped its Peregrine lunar lander would make history after its recent January launch, but the company waved off the landing attempt mere hours after liftoff because of a critical fuel leak and brought the spacecraft back to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.Regaining past knowledge and experience is a big part of the challenge for the U.S., Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told CNN.“We’re learning to do things that we haven’t done in a long time, and what you’re seeing is organizations learning how to fly again,” Pace said. “Going to the moon is not a matter of just a brave or brilliant astronaut. It’s a matter of entire organizations that are organized, trained, and equipped to go out there. What we’re doing now is essentially rebuilding some of the expertise that we had during Apollo but lost over the last 50 years.”Technical know-how, however, is only part of the equation when it comes to landing on the moon. Most of the hurdles are financial.A new modelAt the peak of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget comprised over 4% of all government spending. Today, the space agency’s budget is one-tenth the size, accounting for only 0.4% of all federal spending, even as it attempts to return American astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.“There were literally hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo. It was a $100 billion program in 1960s numbers. It would be a multi-trillion-dollar program in today’s dollars,” said Greg Autry, the director of space leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. “There’s simply nothing that compares to it.”The lunar landers of the 21st century are attempting to accomplish many of the same goals at a small fraction of the price.India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, which became the first spacecraft from the country to safely reach the lunar surface in August 2023, cost about $72 million, according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Science and Technology.“The cost of Chandrayaan-3 is merely Rs 600 crore ($72 million USD), whereas a Hollywood film on space and moon costs more than Rs 600 crore,” Singh told The Economic Times, a media outlet in India, in August.In the U.S., NASA is attempting to drastically reduce prices by outsourcing the design of small, robotic spacecraft to the private sector through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.Astrobotic was the first company to fly under the CLPS initiative, and after its January setback, Intuitive Machines has picked up the torch — soft-landing Odysseus near the lunar south pole on Thursday, though the craft is now reportedly on its side.“We’re going a thousand times further than the International Space Station,” Intuitive Machines president and CEO Steve Altemus told CNN. “And then, on top of that, you set the target: Do it for $100 million when in the past it’s been done for billions of dollars.”Why we can’t just repeat ApolloIt’s also unrealistic to expect that NASA or one of its partners could simply drag out the blueprints of a 1960s lunar lander and recreate it from scratch. Most of the technology used on those missions has long been retired, cast aside by the massive leaps in computing power and material sciences made in the past half-century.Each piece of hardware on a lunar lander must be sourced from modern supply chains — which look far different than those of the 20th century — or designed and manufactured anew. And every sensor and electronic component on the spacecraft must be created to withstand the harsh environment of outer space, a process the industry calls “hardening.”The Apollo missions were famously controlled by computers less powerful than modern smartphones. But spaceflight is far too complex and dangerous to directly translate computing advancements to easier, cheaper moon missions.“Landing on the moon is very different than programming a game. The thing about the iPhone in your pocket is that there are millions and millions of these things. Whereas with space launches, there’s maybe only a handful of them,” Pace said. “The iPhone is, of course, a wonderful innovation with hundreds if not thousands of innovations buried within it, but it also benefits from just raw numbers. And so we really haven’t had that kind of repetition in lunar landings.”A perilous descentAnd while technology has advanced in the past five decades, the fundamental challenges of landing on the moon remain the same. First, there is the sheer distance — it’s roughly a quarter of a million-mile journey from Earth to the moon. If you could drive a car to the moon at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour, it would take more than five months.“Some people have likened it to hitting a golf ball in New York and having it go into a specific hole in Los Angeles. That kind of precision in long distance is unbelievably difficult to do,” Pace said.Then, there is the tricky lunar terrain. The moon is covered in dead volcanoes and deep craters, making it difficult to find flat landing zones.“Apollo 11 would absolutely have crashed and been destroyed if it had landed on the spot it originally came down on,” Autry said. “Neil (Armstrong) was literally looking out the window. He maneuvered the lander over a boulder field and a big crater and found a safe spot to land with just barely enough fuel left. If there wasn’t a skilled pilot that could control it, the lander certainly would have wrecked.”Without the assistance of human eyes inside the spacecraft, modern-day robotic lunar landers use cameras, computers, and sensors equipped with software and artificial intelligence to safely find their landing spot — and avoid boulders and craters — during the final descent. And even humans in mission control rooms back on Earth can’t help the spacecraft in those final, critical seconds before touchdown.“It takes time for a signal to go up and come back, about three seconds total round trip,” Pace said. “A lot can go wrong in that time. So when the vehicle is actually landing, it’s pretty much on its own.”Failure is an optionIn the early days of the 20th-century space race, far more spacecraft failed than safely touched down on the moon. The companies and governments dashing for the moon today — aiming for cheaper price points as they implement modern technology — acknowledge that legacy.And NASA’s commercial partners may be even more willing to embrace risks as they take their moonshots.“(Commercial companies) brought that iterative, fail fast model with them. Get the product out there, let it blow up, figure out what you did wrong, fix it, and go again,” Autry said. “That is not the way the U.S. government operates. Because if your project dies, your government career is screwed.”For its part, even NASA recognizes that a 100% success rate is not guaranteed for its partners.“We’ve always viewed these initial CLPS deliveries as being kind of a learning experience,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s exploration, science mission directorate, during a February 13 briefing. “We knew going into this … we didn’t believe that success was assured.”The hope, however, is that failures early on will lead to repeatable successes down the road. It’s already clear many of the modern moon race participants are prepared to bounce back from their initial failures.Both Ispace — the Japanese company that encountered a mission-ending software glitch last year — and Astrobotic, which lost its Peregrine lander to a propellant issue, have second attempts already in the works.“Everybody on those missions was a rookie. These are people doing it for the first time, and there’s no substitute for that experience. It’s like taking your first solo flight,” Pace said. “Yes, they’re failing, and some companies will go out of business. But if they learn from that failure and come back, now you’re going to have a strong team. This is really about educating a new generation.”

    Hundreds of thousands of miles beyond Earth, a phone booth-size spacecraft is en route to take on a challenge no vehicle launched from the United States has attempted in more than 50 years.

    The lunar lander called Odysseus or IM-1, created by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, landed on the moon this week. Coverage of the historic event was livestreamed on NASA TV.

    Success is not guaranteed. Had it failed, Odysseus would have become the third lunar lander to meet a fiery demise on the moon in less than a year. Russia’s first lunar lander mission in 47 years, Luna 25, failed in August 2023 when it crash-landed. Hakuto-R, a lander developed by Japan-based company Ispace, met a similar fate last April.

    Overall, more than half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure — tough odds for a feat humanity first pulled off nearly 60 years ago.

    The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled, or “soft,” landing in February 1966. The United States followed shortly after when its robotic Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the moon’s surface just four months later.

    Since then, only three other countries — China, India and Japan — have achieved such a milestone. All three reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat just within the past six months, long after the U.S.-Soviet space race had petered out. The U.S. remains the only country to have put humans on the lunar surface, most recently in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission.

    But the U.S. government hasn’t even tried for a soft landing — with or without astronauts on board — since then. Private space company Astrobotic Technology had hoped its Peregrine lunar lander would make history after its recent January launch, but the company waved off the landing attempt mere hours after liftoff because of a critical fuel leak and brought the spacecraft back to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

    Regaining past knowledge and experience is a big part of the challenge for the U.S., Scott Pace, the director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, told CNN.

    “We’re learning to do things that we haven’t done in a long time, and what you’re seeing is organizations learning how to fly again,” Pace said. “Going to the moon is not a matter of just a brave or brilliant astronaut. It’s a matter of entire organizations that are organized, trained, and equipped to go out there. What we’re doing now is essentially rebuilding some of the expertise that we had during Apollo but lost over the last 50 years.”

    Technical know-how, however, is only part of the equation when it comes to landing on the moon. Most of the hurdles are financial.

    A new model

    At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget comprised over 4% of all government spending. Today, the space agency’s budget is one-tenth the size, accounting for only 0.4% of all federal spending, even as it attempts to return American astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.

    “There were literally hundreds of thousands of people working on Apollo. It was a $100 billion program in 1960s numbers. It would be a multi-trillion-dollar program in today’s dollars,” said Greg Autry, the director of space leadership at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. “There’s simply nothing that compares to it.”

    The lunar landers of the 21st century are attempting to accomplish many of the same goals at a small fraction of the price.

    India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander, which became the first spacecraft from the country to safely reach the lunar surface in August 2023, cost about $72 million, according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Science and Technology.

    “The cost of Chandrayaan-3 is merely Rs 600 crore ($72 million USD), whereas a Hollywood film on space and moon costs more than Rs 600 crore,” Singh told The Economic Times, a media outlet in India, in August.

    In the U.S., NASA is attempting to drastically reduce prices by outsourcing the design of small, robotic spacecraft to the private sector through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.

    Astrobotic was the first company to fly under the CLPS initiative, and after its January setback, Intuitive Machines has picked up the torch — soft-landing Odysseus near the lunar south pole on Thursday, though the craft is now reportedly on its side.

    “We’re going a thousand times further than the International Space Station,” Intuitive Machines president and CEO Steve Altemus told CNN. “And then, on top of that, you set the target: Do it for $100 million when in the past it’s been done for billions of dollars.”

    Why we can’t just repeat Apollo

    It’s also unrealistic to expect that NASA or one of its partners could simply drag out the blueprints of a 1960s lunar lander and recreate it from scratch. Most of the technology used on those missions has long been retired, cast aside by the massive leaps in computing power and material sciences made in the past half-century.

    Each piece of hardware on a lunar lander must be sourced from modern supply chains — which look far different than those of the 20th century — or designed and manufactured anew. And every sensor and electronic component on the spacecraft must be created to withstand the harsh environment of outer space, a process the industry calls “hardening.”

    The Apollo missions were famously controlled by computers less powerful than modern smartphones. But spaceflight is far too complex and dangerous to directly translate computing advancements to easier, cheaper moon missions.

    “Landing on the moon is very different than programming a game. The thing about the iPhone in your pocket is that there are millions and millions of these things. Whereas with space launches, there’s maybe only a handful of them,” Pace said. “The iPhone is, of course, a wonderful innovation with hundreds if not thousands of innovations buried within it, but it also benefits from just raw numbers. And so we really haven’t had that kind of repetition in lunar landings.”

    A perilous descent

    And while technology has advanced in the past five decades, the fundamental challenges of landing on the moon remain the same. First, there is the sheer distance — it’s roughly a quarter of a million-mile journey from Earth to the moon. If you could drive a car to the moon at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour, it would take more than five months.

    “Some people have likened it to hitting a golf ball in New York and having it go into a specific hole in Los Angeles. That kind of precision in long distance is unbelievably difficult to do,” Pace said.

    Then, there is the tricky lunar terrain. The moon is covered in dead volcanoes and deep craters, making it difficult to find flat landing zones.

    “Apollo 11 would absolutely have crashed and been destroyed if it had landed on the spot it originally came down on,” Autry said. “Neil (Armstrong) was literally looking out the window. He maneuvered the lander over a boulder field and a big crater and found a safe spot to land with just barely enough fuel left. If there wasn’t a skilled pilot that could control it, the lander certainly would have wrecked.”

    Without the assistance of human eyes inside the spacecraft, modern-day robotic lunar landers use cameras, computers, and sensors equipped with software and artificial intelligence to safely find their landing spot — and avoid boulders and craters — during the final descent. And even humans in mission control rooms back on Earth can’t help the spacecraft in those final, critical seconds before touchdown.

    “It takes time for a signal to go up and come back, about three seconds total round trip,” Pace said. “A lot can go wrong in that time. So when the vehicle is actually landing, it’s pretty much on its own.”

    Failure is an option

    In the early days of the 20th-century space race, far more spacecraft failed than safely touched down on the moon. The companies and governments dashing for the moon today — aiming for cheaper price points as they implement modern technology — acknowledge that legacy.

    And NASA’s commercial partners may be even more willing to embrace risks as they take their moonshots.

    “(Commercial companies) brought that iterative, fail fast model with them. Get the product out there, let it blow up, figure out what you did wrong, fix it, and go again,” Autry said. “That is not the way the U.S. government operates. Because if your project dies, your government career is screwed.”

    For its part, even NASA recognizes that a 100% success rate is not guaranteed for its partners.

    “We’ve always viewed these initial CLPS deliveries as being kind of a learning experience,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s exploration, science mission directorate, during a February 13 briefing. “We knew going into this … we didn’t believe that success was assured.”

    The hope, however, is that failures early on will lead to repeatable successes down the road. It’s already clear many of the modern moon race participants are prepared to bounce back from their initial failures.

    Both Ispace — the Japanese company that encountered a mission-ending software glitch last year — and Astrobotic, which lost its Peregrine lander to a propellant issue, have second attempts already in the works.

    “Everybody on those missions was a rookie. These are people doing it for the first time, and there’s no substitute for that experience. It’s like taking your first solo flight,” Pace said. “Yes, they’re failing, and some companies will go out of business. But if they learn from that failure and come back, now you’re going to have a strong team. This is really about educating a new generation.”

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  • Quick thinking and a stroke of luck averted a moon lander disaster for Intuitive Machines | TechCrunch

    Quick thinking and a stroke of luck averted a moon lander disaster for Intuitive Machines | TechCrunch

    Intuitive Machines’ spacecraft touched down yesterday on the lunar surface . . . sideways. CEO Steve Altemus confirmed during a press conference Friday that, while it wasn’t a perfect landing, it’s nothing short of a miracle the spacecraft landed intact at all.

    Using a small model of the lander, Altemus demonstrated how engineers believe the spacecraft, called Odysseus, made its descent given the most recent telemetry data.

    “The vehicle is stable near or at our intended landing site,” Altemus said. “We’re downloading data from the buffers in the spacecraft and commanding the spacecraft.”

    Intuitive Machines confirmed yesterday that the lander touched down on the surface at 5:24 p.m. Central Time — making the company the first to put a privately built spacecraft on the moon — but many details about the vehicle’s health were unknown. Part of the reason for that is because the onboard camera, an instrument called EagleCam, was powered down during landing. Without images, engineers had to rely on other data to determine the lander’s orientation after it landed.

    Even now, the company is continuing to reconstruct the series of events that led up to the historic landing. The company originally thought Odysseus was actually upright, but Altemus said that was based on “stale” telemetry data. Currently available information is indicating that the spacecraft was indeed vertical at touchdown, but because it was also moving horizontally — and a little too quickly — it’s likely that one of its legs caught on something or broke, causing it to tilt over.

    The good news is that most of the onboard payloads are not on the downward-facing panel — the only one that does not need to operate on the lunar surface. The company was able to confirm that many of the major subsystems — including the solar arrays providing power to the spacecraft and the onboard payloads — are performing well.

    Much of the mission’s success came down to very quick thinking by Intuitive Machines’ mission controllers — and just a stroke of very good luck.

    Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus during a press conference after the IM-1 landing. Image Credits: NASA

    The navigational issues started after Odysseus conducted a planned maneuver called lunar orbital insertion on Wednesday night, which put it in an elliptical orbit around the moon. That ended up being extremely “fortuitous,” Altemus said, because it led mission controllers to try to use a navigational subsystem called “laser rangefinders” far earlier than planned (the lasers were going to be activated for the first time during the final descent phase).

    After reviewing the data, the company realized the morning of landing that the lasers were not working — because they did not turn off a physical safety switch on the component while it was still on the ground.

    These lasers determine critical variables for landing, like altitude and horizontal velocity; with them non-functional, Odysseus could’ve succumbed to the fate of so many other landers and crashed on the surface. The company considered a handful of options, but ultimately they decided to use a NASA doppler lidar payload that was meant as a technology demonstration. They directed Odysseus to orbit the moon for an additional two-hour period, to give them more time to load software patches and reset the lander’s guidance, navigation and control system.

    It was a remarkable last-minute save. Prasun Desai, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s space technology mission directorate, said during the press conference that the agency was hoping to get the doppler lidar technology to a technology readiness level (TRL) of 6, but that the successful execution onboard Odysseus has brought it to TRL 9, the highest level of readiness.

    “All that hard work came to bear yesterday when there was a technical issue and the teams decided that hey, it was best to try to do the switch and rely on this tech demonstration,” he said. “Everything we understand from the telemetry received, which is limited to this point, until we get all the data back, is that the technology performed flawlessly.”

    Aria Alamalhodaei

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  • ‘Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing

    ‘Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing

    The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface – aiming to make the first touchdown of a U.S.-made spacecraft on the moon in over five decades.The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate U.S. lunar landing mission that failed in January. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment and identify key resources – such as the presence of water – before it attempts to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.Odie lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.The mission had been slated to launch on Wednesday, but an issue with the temperature of propellant needed to power the spacecraft delayed the attempt by 24 hours.Journey to the moonThe rocket fired Odie into Earth’s orbit, blazing to speeds topping 24,600 mph, according to Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the spacecraft under contract with NASA through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.Odie’s path amounts to “a high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus put it.After burning through its fuel, the rocket detached from Odie, leaving the lunar lander to fly solo through space. The robotic explorer then consulted an onboard map of the stars so it could orient itself in space, pointing its solar panels toward the sun’s rays to charge its batteries.”We are seeing most everything that we would expect,” according to a dispatch from Intuitive Machines’ mission control around 2 a.m. ET.Odie is now on an oval-shaped path around Earth, stretching as far out as 236,100 miles from home. And about 18 hours into spaceflight, the vehicle will ignite its motor for the first time, continuing its fast-paced trip toward the lunar surface.The moon, which orbits roughly 250,000 miles away from Earth, is expected to give Odie a gentle gravitational tug as the spacecraft approaches, pulling the vehicle toward its cratered surface.Odie is slated to make its nail-biting touchdown attempt on Feb. 22, aiming for a crater near the moon’s south pole.It will be a dangerous trek. If Odie fails, it will join a growing list of missions that have unsuccessfully sought a lunar touchdown: The first U.S.-built lunar lander to launch in five decades, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine, was hampered by a critical fuel leak last month. That came after two failed missions from other countries in 2023: one from Russia and another from a company based in Japan.China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon so far in the 21st century.What Odie will do on the moonOdie’s trip to the moon can be considered a scouting mission of sorts, designed to assess the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s current plan to return a crewed mission to the moon through the Artemis program in late 2026.The moon’s south pole is an area of widespread interest amid a new international space race, as the region is thought to be home to stores of water ice. The precious resource could be converted into drinking water for astronauts or even rocket fuel for missions exploring deeper into space.Packed on board the lunar lander are six NASA science and technology payloads. They include a radio receiver system that will study lunar plasma, which is created by solar winds and other charged particles raining down on the moon’s surface.Other payloads will test technology that could be used on future lunar landing missions, such as a new sensor that could potentially help guide precision landings.The Navigation Doppler Lidar, as the sensor is called, “shoots laser beams to the ground and measures spacecraft velocity – that’s the speed – and the direction of the flight,” said Farzin Amzajerdian, the principal investigator for the lidar payload at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Also on board the lander are technological and commemorative payloads from the private sector. Columbia Sportswear, for example, developed a special insulation material that could help shield Odie from the moon’s extreme temperatures. A small sculpture representing the phases of the moon – designed in consultation with artist Jeff Koons – will be tucked on board as well.Odie also houses a camera system called EagleCam that was developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The device is set to pop off of the lunar lander as it approaches the surface and captures images of the vehicle’s descent.”Hopefully, we’ll get a bird’s-eye view of that landing to share with the public,” Altemus said.Odie is expected to operate for seven days on the lunar surface before darkness falls on the landing site, blocking the spacecraft’s solar panels from the sun and plunging it into freezing temperatures.

    The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface – aiming to make the first touchdown of a U.S.-made spacecraft on the moon in over five decades.

    The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate U.S. lunar landing mission that failed in January. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment and identify key resources – such as the presence of water – before it attempts to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.

    Odie lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

    The mission had been slated to launch on Wednesday, but an issue with the temperature of propellant needed to power the spacecraft delayed the attempt by 24 hours.

    Journey to the moon

    The rocket fired Odie into Earth’s orbit, blazing to speeds topping 24,600 mph, according to Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the spacecraft under contract with NASA through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

    Odie’s path amounts to “a high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus put it.

    After burning through its fuel, the rocket detached from Odie, leaving the lunar lander to fly solo through space. The robotic explorer then consulted an onboard map of the stars so it could orient itself in space, pointing its solar panels toward the sun’s rays to charge its batteries.

    “We are seeing most everything that we would expect,” according to a dispatch from Intuitive Machines’ mission control around 2 a.m. ET.

    Odie is now on an oval-shaped path around Earth, stretching as far out as 236,100 miles from home. And about 18 hours into spaceflight, the vehicle will ignite its motor for the first time, continuing its fast-paced trip toward the lunar surface.

    The moon, which orbits roughly 250,000 miles away from Earth, is expected to give Odie a gentle gravitational tug as the spacecraft approaches, pulling the vehicle toward its cratered surface.

    Odie is slated to make its nail-biting touchdown attempt on Feb. 22, aiming for a crater near the moon’s south pole.

    It will be a dangerous trek. If Odie fails, it will join a growing list of missions that have unsuccessfully sought a lunar touchdown: The first U.S.-built lunar lander to launch in five decades, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine, was hampered by a critical fuel leak last month. That came after two failed missions from other countries in 2023: one from Russia and another from a company based in Japan.

    China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon so far in the 21st century.

    What Odie will do on the moon

    Odie’s trip to the moon can be considered a scouting mission of sorts, designed to assess the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s current plan to return a crewed mission to the moon through the Artemis program in late 2026.

    The moon’s south pole is an area of widespread interest amid a new international space race, as the region is thought to be home to stores of water ice. The precious resource could be converted into drinking water for astronauts or even rocket fuel for missions exploring deeper into space.

    Packed on board the lunar lander are six NASA science and technology payloads. They include a radio receiver system that will study lunar plasma, which is created by solar winds and other charged particles raining down on the moon’s surface.

    Other payloads will test technology that could be used on future lunar landing missions, such as a new sensor that could potentially help guide precision landings.

    The Navigation Doppler Lidar, as the sensor is called, “shoots laser beams to the ground and measures spacecraft velocity – that’s the speed – and the direction of the flight,” said Farzin Amzajerdian, the principal investigator for the lidar payload at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

    Also on board the lander are technological and commemorative payloads from the private sector. Columbia Sportswear, for example, developed a special insulation material that could help shield Odie from the moon’s extreme temperatures. A small sculpture representing the phases of the moon – designed in consultation with artist Jeff Koons – will be tucked on board as well.

    Odie also houses a camera system called EagleCam that was developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. The device is set to pop off of the lunar lander as it approaches the surface and captures images of the vehicle’s descent.

    “Hopefully, we’ll get a bird’s-eye view of that landing to share with the public,” Altemus said.

    Odie is expected to operate for seven days on the lunar surface before darkness falls on the landing site, blocking the spacecraft’s solar panels from the sun and plunging it into freezing temperatures.

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