The Nova-C Lander of intuitive machines is located on the lunar surface in this illustration, depicting it in a ridge near the Shackleton crater. Since then his landing site has been changed to Mons Mouton. Credit: intuitive machines
Update Thursday 27 February 2025: The Spacex Falcon 9 rocket that transported IM-2 successfully risen at 19:16 east of Wednesday 26 February.
At the beginning of the next month, a robotic Lander will arrive at the southern pole of the moon that brings an eclectic suite of loads useful to look for underground water ice. The IM-2 of intuitive machines is targeting a touchdown at 84.6 ° south latitude, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the pole. It will distribute a drill and mass spectrometer, a miniaturized rover and a “tramoglina” boat unique to explore a permanently shaded crater for the first time.
The six-legged Nova-C Lander will ride on the top of a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39a to the Kennedy Space Center of Florida during a four-day launch window that opens on Wednesday 26 February. And like the previous missions of this sacred launch-inclusion complex Apollo 8 (the first Lunar park of Lunar) its raft of first historians.
A punctual launch and a lunar transit will position the IM-2 for a landing on March 6 on Mons Mouton, a mountain of about 4 miles (6 km) surmounted by a plateau of dimensions similar to the state of the delaware near the Lunar South Polo.
Commercial partner
Intuitive Machines based in Texas is one of the 14 industrial partners selected by NASA for Payload Lunar Commercial (CLPS) services-a $ 2.6 billion initiative presented in May 2018 to encourage industry to build robotic landists and fly on the payloads on the moon. The intuitive machines were chosen as partner CLPS in November 2018 and since then he has won four NASA contracts for a quartet of missions until 2027.
The Nova-C Lander in the company’s home is located 14.1 feet (4.3 meters) and 5.6 m wide (1.6 m) through its hexagonal frame-size size of a small car. It can carry up to 280 pounds (130 kilograms) of useful loads on the lunar surface. Its 3D printed VR-900 engine was the first methane/oxygen engine never shot in deep space when it was on in the IM-1 mission in February 2024.
Three solar panels on the Lander top deck, as well as two array mounted on the body-peerly 200 watts of electricity for a duration of the superficial life of a complete lunar day, or about two weeks on Earth. The limits of the battery mean that Nova-C cannot survive the freezing two-week lunar night, when temperatures fall from the daytime maximums of 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) to low -208 F (–130 C).
For IM-2, intuitive machines gave his Lander Nova-C the name Athena, honoring the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom. (The IM-2 mission team affectionately abbreviated the name to Addy.)
Average success
The first mission of last year’s intuitive machines provided conflicting results. IM-1, transporting 10 loads of profits for science and technology for NASA, the academic world and industry, became the first American space vehicle to land on the moon from Apollo 17 in December 1972. Called Odysseus after the Greek hero of the Trojan War, he made the first lunar landing from a commercial vehicle and the closest to the south pole, at 80.13 ° latitude to the south.
However, a security switch on the primary laser range of Odysseus was not activated before launch. A fundamental part of the IM-1 navigation toolkit, facilitated the accurate data of altitude and speed during the descent on the moon. The earth teams have implemented several alternative solutions in flight to solve the problem, but Odysseus landed faster than expected, slipping along the surface, breaking one of the legs and overturning with an embarrassing corner of 30 °.
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Some scientific data were returned but Odysseus eventually lost power and closed at the drop of the lunar night. A post-duty review has identified 85 technical problems, which the company believes it has solved. But success on IM-2 is not guaranteed. “Spaceflight is difficult: landing on the moon is extremely difficult,” said Trent Martin, the senior vice -president of intuitive Machines for Space Systems, to journalists of a media teleconference at the beginning of this month. “You never know what could happen.”
When IM-1 was flew, IM-2 was approaching the completion. The date of the origins of the mission until October 2020, when NASA has assigned a 47 million dollar contract to intuitive machines to deliver its 88-pound polar ice mining experiment (40 kg) (first-1) to the South Lunar pole, where the shaded craters permanently could contain large quantities of water-a key resource in the future exploration of the humanity of the humanity of the humanity of the human moon.
An underground research
The two first-1-The Regolith and Ice Drill tools to explore the new ground (Trident), built by Honeybe Robotics, and the mass spectrometer of NASA that observes the lunar operations (Msolo)-they will take on the surface, in search of water ice and measure the free birds. A rotating percussive drill with hard carbide teeth than steel, Trident will turn and pardon the 3 -foot deep road (1 m) in the regolite.
“We will go down in about 10 centimeters (3.9 inches)” bites “… You are capturing the regolite on the drills of the drill,” explained Jacqueline Quinn, the main investigator of Prime-1 and environmental engineer at the Kennedy Space Center of NASA. “Then you will bring that drill on the surface … and during that process of lifting the drill, it passively pushes beyond a brush and the brushing mechanism substantially launches the regulation on the surface.”
The result will be a series of conical batteries of lunar material excavation of increasingly higher depths that Msolo will analyze due to the presence of birds. “Every time we deposit the 10 cm (3.9 inches) on the surface, we are getting many key geotechnical data and we are also obtaining volatile data from the process of sublimation of gases,” added Quinn.
Since perforage, Prime-1 will also provide insights on the forces necessary to dig the lunar material, as well as surface temperatures, energy requirements and the effectiveness, reliability and behavior of electric utensils on the moon. It was built as a precursor for NASA volatiles that investigate the polar exploration (Viper), a mission to look for water at the Mons Mouton but canceled last summer-in a development that shocked scientists-and of costs and estimates.
IM-2 was originally destined to land in a ridge near the Shackleton crater of 13 km in diameter of 13 miles, but this was changed before the launch for target the original destination of Viper.
Delivery of payloads
In addition to the main useful load of the Prime-1 mission, IM-2 transports a series of other scientific experiments.
The 22 kg of 22 kg independent prospecting platform of 22 kg Lunar is a small rover that will venture 1 mile (1.6 km) on the surface, communicating directly with Athena and Earth through a high -band 4G/LTE cell/LTE network supplied by Nokia. MAPP will collect samples for NASA with a contract of the value of only $ 1, a symbolic incentive for emerging commercial space industries to access lunar resources.
Moving at a maximum speed of 0.32 km/hour), MAPP and its loads of useful guests will map the local soil, capturing stereo images and thermal data and analyzing relegations samples in a special Bin attached to its wheels.
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Also on board of the IM-2 is the micro-nova of intuitive machines, which will separate from Athena after landing and acts as an autonomous drone, exploring the areas that are difficult to reach using small hydrazine engines to go through short distances. Call Grace after the retro-admiral and the pioneer of the U.S. Marina of the United States Grace Hopper (1906-1992), will perform five short flights-o “hops” -Crusal one in a permanently shaded region within a first crater-una for any spacecraft.
The hopper can carry useful loads of up to 2 pounds (0.9 kg) through distances of 1.4 km (2.4 km) for high resolution polls of the moon. Like MAPP, it will transmit data and photographs via the Nokia cell network to Athena.
His first hop will reach a height of 65 feet (20 m) with two additional hops that aim to reach 165 feet (50 m), then 330 feet (100 m). On his fourth and fifth Hop, he will skip inside and outside a region permanently in the shade inside a 20 m crater (20 m). Assuming that the lands IM-2 on the target, the crater-NOTO only as a H-Dov crater would be from 1,300 to 1.650 feet (from 400 to 500 m from the landing site. The temperatures inside the crater could immerse up to -370 F (–223 C).
“Once in the crater, if we have a communication, we will continue to communicate with Gracie,” said Martin, referring to the profession with his nickname. “We believe, based on our discussions with Nokia, that we could actually have communications within that crater”.
Otherwise, after 45 minutes, Grace will jump out of the crater using their power. Similar devices to drone such as the IM-2 hopper should prove to be useful for future missions in which deep and steep positions are made inaccessible to humans or rover.
Other Payload IM-2 include Lunar Trailblazer, a NASA probe that maps the distribution of water ice through the moon; Yaoki Mini-Rover of 1.1 pound Japan (0.5 kg); And the first flight of Spaceflight, Inc. Sherpa Escape (Sherpa-ES) Space Tug on the Moon.
After launching IM-2 at the end of this month, intuitive machines will continue to move forward with other missions. At the end of 2025, IM-3 will land in the Rainer Gamma Equatorial website to investigate the mysterious surface phenomenon known as lunar turbini. And in 2027, IM-4 will provide a European surface drill and other loads useful for the south pole of the moon.
Note of the editor: This story has been updated to reflect the new IM-2 landing site in Mons Mouton.
