The moon landing of the private lander Odysseus of the Texan company Intuitive Machines is scheduled for 11.30pm this evening, therefore a few minutes earlier than initially announced: the time was updated after the flight controllers analyzed the data collected yesterday during the maneuver for insertion into lunar orbit.
The soft landing, so far always failed by previous private missions, "will be the most difficult challenge for Odysseus", admits the company in a post on platform X. The goal is to touch the ground near Malapert A, a small impact crater which is located 300 kilometers from the lunar south pole.
If successful, Odysseus will return the United States to the Moon more than 50 years after the last Apollo mission.
The engine-controlled descent is expected to begin around 11.18pm.
At 11.28pm the lander will begin to descend vertically and then complete the descent in one minute and land at 11.30pm.
Odysseus, launched last February 15th, appears to be in excellent condition for the moment and NASA says that all its scientific instruments on board are functional and operational, including Ln-1 (Lunar Node 1 Navigation Demonstrator), Ndl (Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing), Rfmg (Radio Frequency Mass Gauge), Rolses (Radio-wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the Photoelectron Sheath) and Scalpss (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies).
In the meantime, Intuitive Machines has published several images captured by the lander in the last few hours: one portrays the visible face of the Moon taken after insertion into orbit, while another frames the Bel'kovich K crater, 50 kilometers wide, which features mountains in the center.
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