The lander from the American company Intuitive Machines in front of the surface of the Moon, in an image published on February 21, 2024 by the company (Intuitive Machines / Handout)
Crash, or soft landing? The Texan company Intuitive Machines will attempt on Thursday to carry out the first moon landing of an American probe in more than 50 years, and at the same time become the first private company to successfully complete the maneuver.
After being postponed for the first time, the planned time of the moon landing is now set at 5:24 p.m. Houston time, Texas, where the company’s control room is located (11:24 p.m. GMT).
The Nova-C lander, which notably transports NASA scientific instruments, measures a little over four meters high. It took off last week from Florida and entered lunar orbit on Wednesday.
Intuitive Machines has decided to make one more trip to the Moon than planned before launching the landing procedure, the company announced Thursday to explain the delay.
The dreaded, fully automated descent will take around an hour. The event can be followed live on the company and NASA websites.
Cameras and lasers will allow the device to guide itself in real time. At an altitude of 30 meters, the final, vertical descent will begin.
Schematic of the Nova-C class Odysseus lander built by Intuitive Machnes, part of NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon and establish a permanent base there (AFP / Gal ROMA)
It is at this moment that a small machine equipped with cameras, developed by the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, will be ejected from the moon to capture the big moment from the outside.
Using its engine, Nova-C will have to reduce its speed from 1,800 meters per second to one meter per second by the time its six feet touch the ground.
A success would mark not only a major milestone for the private space sector, but also the first landing of an American probe on the Moon since the end of the legendary Apollo program in 1972.
India and Japan recently managed to land there thanks to their national space agencies, becoming the fourth and fifth countries to do so, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
But several companies — Israeli, Japanese and American — have so far failed to reproduce the same feat.
Russia also missed a moon landing this summer.
– Lunar South Pole –
The Earth taken by the Intuitive Machines lunar probe, which must attempt to land on the Moon on Thursday (Intuitive Machines / Handout)
The location Intuitive Machines is targeting is about 300 kilometers from the Moon’s south pole. The crater which is to act as a landing strip is named Malapert A, after a 17th century astronomer.
The lunar south pole is of interest because there is water there in the form of ice, which could be exploited.
NASA wants to send its astronauts there from 2026 with its Artemis missions.
It is in particular to prepare for these missions that she seeks to study this region more closely.
To do this, it uses its brand new program, called CLPS (for “Commercial Lunar Payload Services”). Instead of developing ships for the Moon itself, the American space agency commissioned private companies to take its scientific equipment there.
Intuitive Machines is one of the companies selected, and the amount of its contract with NASA for this first mission, named IM-1, amounts to 118 million dollars.
Landing sites for probes and manned spacecraft on the Moon (AFP /)
The objective is to reduce costs for the public agency, to be able to make the trip more frequently, but also to develop the lunar economy. And this despite the risks of failure.
A first mission of the program, led by the American company Astrobotic, failed to reach the Moon last month.
– Seven days of activity –
The Intuitive Machines moon landing craft, the example of which used for this mission was named Odysseus, is also carrying six private cargoes. Among them: sculptures by contemporary artist Jeff Koons representing the phases of the Moon.
Photo released by NASA on February 7, 2024 of the Nova-C lander at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida (NASA/SpaceX / Handout)
The six NASA scientific instruments on board are focusing on initial observations of this still little-explored region.
Cameras placed under the moon will analyze the amount of dust projected during descent, in order to compare it to the Apollo moon landings.
Another instrument will study lunar plasma (a layer of gas charged with electricity), and measure radio waves coming from the Sun and other planets.
Odysseus, which is powered by its solar panels, must operate for approximately seven days from the moment of its landing, before night sets in on the lunar south pole.