22 February 2024

MOON MI$$ION: Historic First For-Profit Commercial Lunar Soft Landing for a U.S. Company

The company’s stock surged in extended trading Thursday, after falling 11% in regular trading.

Intuitive Machines' lander, named Odysseus, will try today (Feb. 22) to become the first private spacecraft ever to touch down softly on the moon.

But what is the lander carrying?

Intuitive Machines, a Houston, Texas-based company founded in 2013, went public a year ago.

After shares hit an all-time low in early January, the stock has surged and more than tripled – a rally that Wall Street analysts describe as fueled by investor excitement around the IM-1 mission’s progress.

Here's what's landing on the moon today aboard Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander

The intrepid Odysseus entered lunar orbit on Wednesday (Feb. 21) and will make its historic landing attempt this afternoon no earlier than 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT) near Malapert A, a small impact crater about 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the moon's south pole. You can watch the try live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT).

The hexagonal-cylinder-shaped Nova-C series lander is loaded with a total 12 payloads from NASA and commercial companies, which will carry out diverse science tasks on the surface of the moon.

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Barron's

1 day ago

Nova-C Moon Lander 'Odysseus' | Barron's

HERE's AN UPDATE FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS:

Moon lander ‘alive and well’ after first US lunar landing since Apollo era

Intuitive Machines is communicating with the Odysseus, but the company is still trying to get more information on the craft’s location and ‘overall health’
Researchers are hoping to release the experimental EagleCam in coming days to capture images of the vehicle on the lunar surface

South China Morning Post

1 hour ago

Moon lander 'alive and well' after first US lunar landing since Apollo era | South China Morning Post

The moon’s newest arrival was said to be “alive and well” a day after making the first US landing in half a century, but flight controllers were still trying to get a better handle on its bearings.

Intuitive Machines reported Friday that it’s communicating with its lander, Odysseus, and sending commands to acquire science data.
But it noted: “We continue to learn more about the vehicle’s specific information” regarding location, overall health and positioning.
The Houston company was shooting for the south polar region, near the Malapert A crater, closer to the pole than anyone else so Nasa could scout out the area before astronauts show up later this decade.

With Thursday’s touchdown, Intuitive Machines became the first private business to pull off a moon landing, a feat previously achieved by only five countries.

The mission was sponsored in large part by Nasa, whose experiments were on board. Nasa paid US$118 million for the delivery under a program meant to jump-start the lunar economy.

One of the Nasa experiments was pressed into service when the lander’s navigation system failed in the final few hours before touchdown.

The lander took an extra lap around the moon to allow time for the last-minute switch to Nasa’s laser system.
“Odie is a scrapper,” mission director Tim Crain said late on Thursday via X, formerly Twitter.

Another experiment, a cube with four cameras, was supposed to pop off 30 seconds before touchdown to capture pictures of Odysseus’ landing.

But Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s EagleCam was deliberately powered off during the final descent because of the navigation switch and stayed attached to the lander.

Spectrum News 13

2 days ago

Learning about Embry-Riddle's EagleCam

Embry-Riddle’s Troy Henderson said his team will try to release EagleCam in the coming days, so it can photograph the lander from roughly 26 feet (8 meters) away.

Chinese and US astronomers to view universe through Odysseus’ eyes
23 Feb 2024

With lingering uncertainty over Odysseus’ position on the moon, “getting that final picture of the lander on the surface is still an incredibly important task for us”, Henderson said.

Intuitive Machines anticipates just a week of operations on the moon for the solar-powered lander, before lunar nightfall hits.

The company was the second business to aim for the moon under Nasa’s commercial lunar services program.

Last month, Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology gave it a shot, but a fuel leak on the lander cut the mission short and the craft ended up crashing back to Earth.

Until Thursday, the US had not landed on the moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out Nasa’s famed moon-landing program in December 1972.

NASA’s new effort to return astronauts to the moon is named Artemis after Apollo’s mythological twin sister. The first Artemis crew landing is planned for 2026 at the earliest.