by Intuitive machines based in Houston at the ready Odysseus lands for landing on the moon today, 13 minutes of descent an hour 13 minutes from orbit to become the first spacecraft built in the US with a stick moon landing for more than 50 years and the first ever by a private company.
One day after braking into a 57-mile orbit inclined 80 degrees to the moon’s equator, Odysseus’ methane-fueled main engine was ignited at 4:17 pm EST, lowering the far side of the orbit to a point near the orbit landing site approximately 186 miles from the south pole of the moon.
As the 14-foot-tall spaceship descends toward the surface, onboard cameras and lasers are programmed to scan the ground below to identify landmarks, providing steering inputs to the lander’s guidance system to help fine-tune the trajectory.
An hour later, at 5:18 p.m., the main engine is expected to ignite again at an altitude of about 18 miles and keep firing for the last 10 minutes of the descent, drifting Odysseus from horizontal to vertical orientation and falling straight down. at just under 4 mph.
As the spacecraft descends below 100 feet, an innovative camera package, called “EagleCam,” built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, will drop out and attempt to photograph the final descent from the side. . NASA cameras on board the spacecraft will photograph the ground directly below.
By the time Odysseus reaches a height of about 33 feet above the surface, the main engine has throttled down to the planned landing velocity of about 2.2 mph — walking speed for seniors.
A touchdown near a crater called Malapert A is expected at 5:30 pm, a week later launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
Video from the lander’s onboard cameras and the EagleCam can’t be transmitted back to Earth in real time, but Intuitive Machines engineers at the company’s Nova Control center in Houston say they should be able to verify a touchdown within about for 15 seconds. The first pictures are expected within half an hour or so.
A successful lunar landing would be the first by a US-built spacecraft since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the first ever by a privately built spacecraft.
Pittsburgh based Astrobotic expected to claim that honor last month with its Falcon Lander, but the mission was ruined by a ruptured propellant tank shortly after launch on January 9. Two lunar missions earlier,. one by Israel and the other at Japanalso ended in failure.
Only the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan have successfully landed on the surface of the moon, and Lander “SLIM” of Japan but partially successful, tipping over on touchdown 19 January.
Both Peregrine and Odysseus were funded in part by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS (pronounced CLIPS), designed to encourage private industry to develop transportation capabilities that NASA can then use to transport payloads to the moon.
The agency’s goal is to help start the development of new technologies and collect data that will be needed by Artemis astronauts planning to land near the moon’s south pole later in the decade.
NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million for its part in the Hawk mission and another $129 million for Odysseus’ instruments and transport to the moon.
What is on board the moon Odysseus?
Odysseus was equipped with six NASA instruments and six other commercial payloads, including miniature lunar sculptures by artist Jeff Koons, proof-of-concept cloud storage technology, Columbia Sportswear insulating blankets and a small astronomical telescope.
Among the NASA experiments: an instrument to study the environment of charged particles on the surface of the moon, another instrument designed to test navigation technologies and the downward-facing cameras designed to photograph how the exhaust of the lander’s engine interferes on the soil at the landing site.
Also on board: an innovative sensor that uses radio waves to accurately determine how much cryogenic propellant is left in a tank in the unencumbered environment of space, technology expected to be useful for downstream moon missions and other deep space voyages.
Odysseus and his instruments are expected to operate on the surface for about a week, until the sun sets at the landing site. At that point, the lander’s solar cells will no longer be able to generate power and the spacecraft will shut down. Odysseus was not designed to survive the ultra-cold moonlit night.
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