After the failure of the first American company's moon landing attempt last month, another company had to postpone a takeoff from Florida for the Moon until Thursday, February 15, still retaining the hope of becoming the first private firm to succeed in landing there.
The mission, named IM-1, plans to send a lander more than four meters high developed by the Texan company Intuitive Machines, founded in 2013.
The machine will be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and takeoff will take place during the night from Wednesday to Thursday at 1:05 a.m. (6:05 a.m. GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center, said NASA, the American space agency, mentioning a problem of methane temperature to explain the report.
“Great pride”
“This is a very proud moment for all of us at Intuitive Machines
,” Trent Martin, vice president of space systems for the company, said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“The possibility of allowing the United States to return to the Moon for the first time since 1972
,” when the Apollo program ended,
“is a technological accomplishment that demands a thirst for exploration
,” he added.
After liftoff, the lander must detach from the upper stage of the rocket and be powered up.
Then communication must be established with the Intuitive Machines control room, located in Houston, Texas.
This is the first lunar attempt for Intuitive Machines, but the second under NASA's new CLPS program, which has commissioned private companies to take scientific equipment to the Moon to prepare for the return of astronauts.
In January, the Astrobotic company failed to reach the Moon due to a fuel leak, and its lander had to be deliberately destroyed in flight.
NASA assumes the risk of failure of these missions, entrusted to young companies.
But, according to her, the game is worth the effort: by relying on the private sector as a simple customer on board vehicles that do not belong to it, the space agency says it can send more equipment, more frequently and for less money.
In addition to six NASA instruments, the moon lander also carries six private cargoes, including sculptures by contemporary artist Jeff Koons representing the phases of the Moon.
Next week
If everything works correctly, the lander will attempt to land on the Moon next week, February 22.
Thanks to the fuel used (liquid oxygen and methane), making it possible to install a
“very large engine”
, the trip to the Moon is done
“very quickly”
, explained Trent Martin.
The model of this lander is called Nova-C, and the copy used for this first mission was named Odysseus.
The planned landing site is a crater near the Moon's south pole, which is still little explored.
The six instruments of the American space agency on board should make it possible to study this particular environment.
Four cameras will, for example, observe the descent phase and the dust projected during landing, in order to compare its effects to those of the Apollo moon landings, carried out closer to the equator.
The South Pole of the Moon is important for NASA, because it is there that the space agency wants to land its astronauts as part of the Artemis missions.
The reason: there is water there in the form of ice, which could be exploited.
But with the Sun permanently low in the horizon, it can also be extremely cold.
“Because the environment is very harsh, this will give us a reference point to understand how solar panels and instruments work there
,” said Susan Lederer, head of the science part of the CLPS program.
The Artemis 3 mission, which will be the first manned mission to land there, is now planned for 2026.
Flourish of missions
The contract signed by NASA for this first Intuitive Machines mission amounts to $118 million.
Two other missions from this company to the Moon, IM-2 and IM-3, are planned for this year.
NASA is the
“main client”
each time , said Trent Martin.
In addition to Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic, a third American company, Firefly Aerospace, is also due to attempt the adventure in 2024.
Tests by other companies, Israeli and Japanese, ended in crashes in 2019 and 2023.
However, national agencies have managed to land on the Moon recently: India this summer, then Japan in January.
They thus became the fourth and fifth countries to succeed in the operation, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.