NASA is counting on a second spacecraft, being developed by a different company, to accomplish the first American lunar landing in over 50 years following the failure of a lunar landing mission last month.
The lunar lander, also known as Odysseus, or Odie for short, is scheduled to launch on Wednesday at 12:57 a.m. ET aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The spacecraft will be launched by the rocket into an oval-shaped orbit that circles the planet 380,000 kilometres (236,100 miles) in all directions. “a high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Stephen Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, stated. Odysseus was created by his Houston-based business.
After entering Earth’s orbit, the lunar lander will detach from the rocket and set out on its own, utilising an internal engine to propel itself directly in the direction of the lunar surface.
If Odysseus is successful, it will be the first American spacecraft since Apollo 17 in 1972 to land gently on the moon.
In the event that Odysseus is successful, it will be the first American spacecraft to land gently on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The importance of the Odysseus mission
One month has passed since the NASA-funded vehicle Peregrine, manufactured by Astrobotic Technology, failed to complete its mission. This lunar lander is being launched. Shortly after Peregrine’s January 8 launch, the Pittsburgh-based business disclosed a potentially catastrophic fuel leak. Ten days later, as the spacecraft hurtled back towards Earth, it burned up in the atmosphere.
However, as part of a programme known as CLPS, or Commercial Lunar Payload Services, NASA has funded the development of a small fleet of independently built lunar landers.
“In CLPS, American companies used their own engineering and manufacturing practices instead of adherence to formal and traditional NASA procedures and NASA oversight,”outlined by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s deputy assistant administrator for exploration, Joel Kearns.“CLPS is a test of that philosophy.”
The program’s objective is to build lunar landers under fixed-price, reasonably priced contracts with the hope of employing the spacecraft to establish US lunar presence as a new space competition intensifies on a global scale.
The only countries in the 21st century with soft-landed vehicles on the moon are China, India, and Japan. The worldwide race to place robotic spacecraft on the moon is intensifying, even though NASA is still certain that the US will be the first nation to send people back to the moon.
The way NASA has embraced commercialization—the notion that several spacecraft can be produced more rapidly and affordably with private business vying for contracts than if the space agency were to develop its own—sets its approach apart from others.
Intuitive Machines’ Altemus calls this strategy “forced innovation.”
“Companies had to think of ways to balance the risk (and) think of ways of getting around technical problems in a rapid amount of time with less dollars to spend,” he told CNN. “So it really drove down — from the start — the cost of lunar access, so that it can be done … cheaper than what had been done historically in the Apollo days.”
In total, NASA may award Intuitive Machines up to $118 million for this project.
The success of these initial landing attempts could determine the direction and speed of NASA’s redoubled efforts to study the moon robotically before attempting to bring men back to the lunar surface later this decade. However, the NASA CLPS programme does not depend on every mission landing safely.
A group of lunar landers in stability
The success of these initial landing attempts could determine the direction and speed of NASA’s redoubled efforts to study the moon robotically before attempting to bring men back to the lunar surface later this decade. However, the NASA CLPS programme does not depend on every mission landing safely.
After Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, a 2013 startup, will be the second CLPS programme member to try a moon landing. (Two more CLPS missions are scheduled for 2024 after this.)
With three planned moon trips, Intuitive Machines holds the most orders from NASA of the four companies selected to deploy lunar landers to the moon under the CLPS programme.
What’s in the air
According to Intuitive Machines, the Odysseus lander is a Nova-C model that is around the size of a British phone booth with legs added.
The space competition is focused on a location close to the moon’s south pole, which is where the corporation hopes to land the spacecraft. Water ice that may one day be used as rocket fuel or as drinking water for astronauts is thought to exist in this area.
NASA plans to land astronauts in the same area of the moon at the south pole later this year.
Six NASA payloads, or scientific equipment intended to test novel technologies or assess the lunar environment (e.g., a study of the behaviour of the moon’s soil after landing), will be carried on board the lander.
If everything goes as planned, Odysseus will work on the moon for seven days while the lunar lander enjoys the sun. But the spacecraft will go to sleep once the landing zone enters Earth’s shadow and experiences lunar darkness.
The chances of success
A few successful lunar landings, accomplished by Japan and India, have occurred in the last year. However, there have also been severe failures, with recent spacecraft losses by Russia and the United States.
According to Altemus, Intuitive Machines has an 80% probability of successfully putting Odysseus on the moon.
“We’ve stood on the shoulders of everybody who’s tried before us,” The speaker stated that Intuitive Machines endeavoured to examine the propulsion problem that beset the Peregrine lander a fortnight ago and guarantee that the same issue wouldn’t surface during Odysseus’ expedition.
“We just have a fundamentally different architecture,” Altemus added.
However, he stated that a successful endeavour would only be the beginning.
“It’s not a one-and-done operation at all,” Altemus said. “We built a lunar program for the purpose of flying regularly to the moon.”
According to a vision outlined by NASA and its partners, developing programmes that can make frequent robotic visits to the moon might pave the way for a time when lunar travel is routine, affordable, and supports larger initiatives like a functional lunar base with personnel living and working there.