After the failure of the first American company's lunar landing attempt last month, another company must launch to the moon from Florida on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday and hopes to be the first private company to land there.
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The mission, called IM-1, sends a lander more than four meters high that was developed by the Texas company Intuitive Machines, founded in 2013.
The machine will be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to lift off from Kennedy Space Center at 12:57 a.m. (05:57 GMT) on Wednesday.
Shortly after launch, the lander must detach from the upper stage of the rocket and power up. Communication must then be established with the Intuitive Machines control room in Houston, Texas.
This is the first lunar attempt for this company, but the second under NASA's new CLPS program, which has contracted with private companies to bring scientific equipment to our natural satellite in preparation for the astronauts' return.
In January, the company Astrobotic failed to reach the moon due to a fuel leak and its lander had to be intentionally destroyed in flight.
NASA assumes the risk of failure of these missions entrusted to young companies, emphasizing that it is aware that not all of them will be successful. But the game is worth the effort, she says: By being a simple customer aboard vehicles it doesn't own, the space agency can ship more equipment, more often, and for less money.
This is “a pivotal moment in space exploration, with private companies playing an increasingly important role,” Intuitive Machines said.
In addition to six NASA instruments, the lunar lander also carries six private cargoes, including sculptures by contemporary artist Jeff Koons depicting the phases of the moon.
Next week
If everything works correctly, the lander will attempt to land on the moon next week, on February 22nd.
It would be the first American device to do this since the end of the Apollo program more than 50 years ago.
The model of this lander is called Nova-C and the specimen used for this first mission was named Odysseus.
The planned landing site is a crater near the moon's south pole that is still poorly explored.
The American space agency's six instruments on board will make it possible to study this special environment.
For example, four cameras will observe the descent phase and the dust projected during landing to compare its effects with those of the Apollo moon landings carried out closer to the equator.
The south pole of the moon is important for NASA because the space agency wants to land its astronauts there as part of the Artemis missions. The reason: There is water there in the form of ice that could be used.
However, since the sun is constantly low on the horizon, it can also be extremely cold.
“Since the environment is very harsh, this will give us a clue to understand how solar panels and instruments work there,” said Susan Lederer, head of the scientific part of the program, at a press conference on Monday. CLPS.
The Artemis 3 mission, which will be the first manned mission to land there, is now planned for 2026.
Missions flourish
The contract signed by NASA for this first Intuitive Machines mission is worth $118 million.
Two more missions from this company to the moon, IM-2 and IM-3, are planned for this year.
NASA is the “primary customer” every time, said Trent Martin, vice president in charge of space systems for the company.
In addition to Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic, a third American company, Firefly Aerospace, is also scheduled to try the adventure in 2024.
Tests by other Israeli and Japanese companies ended in crashes in 2019 and 2023.
However, national agencies have recently managed to land on the moon: India this summer, then Japan in January. This made them the fourth and fifth countries to succeed in the operation, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.