The Odysseus spacecraft performed well and began communicating with operators during its week-long flight to the Moon.
The Odysseus spacecraft separates from the Falcon 9 rocket. Photo: NASA TV
The Odysseus robotic lunar lander, built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the morning of Feb. 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The liftoff went smoothly, with Odysseus separating from the rocket and following its own planned trajectory. The lander successfully deployed into space by establishing a stable orientation, charging its solar panels and communicating via radio with the company’s mission control center, Intuitive Machines announced about eight hours after launch.
The Odysseus spacecraft, about the size of a British telephone booth, will arrive at the Moon in six days if all goes according to plan. It will first enter orbit around the Moon, then prepare to land on February 22 at the bottom of a small crater about 300 kilometers from the South Pole. If it succeeds, the mission will be historic. No private spacecraft has ever made a soft landing on the Moon, and the United States has not sent a spacecraft to the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 astronauts returned to Earth in December 1972.
Odysseus is carrying 12 payloads, including six NASA instruments as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The NASA instruments will do everything from testing new precision-landing and positioning technologies to measuring how Odysseus’s exhaust interacts with the lunar soil as the lander lands. Such data could pave the way for establishing a human base at the south pole in the coming years, a goal NASA is pursuing through its Artemis program. The remaining six payloads on Odysseus belong to a variety of private customers, including Columbia Sportswear, which is developing thermal insulation technology for the lander.
Odysseus, the IM-1 mission, is the second lunar lander to launch under the CLPS program. The first was Peregrine, built by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic. Peregrine launched on January 8 aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket. The launch went smoothly, but Peregrine suffered a serious fuel leak shortly afterward, forcing Astrobotic to make a controlled descent through Earth’s atmosphere on January 18.
An Khang (According to Space )
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