Houston-based space exploration company Intuitive Machines has reached a significant milestone with its spacecraft, Odysseus, initiating a historic mission around the moon.
Odysseus began its final descent from lunar orbit, employing its main engine for a scheduled touchdown at 5:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, targeting the Malapert A crater near the moon's south pole, according to a report published by NewsMax. Loaded with scientific instruments and technology demonstrations, the spacecraft's payload serves both NASA and various commercial customers.
The moon mission, designed to operate for seven days on solar energy, aims to collect crucial data on space weather interactions, radio astronomy, and lunar environmental aspects. "All powered NASA science instruments on board have completed their transit checkouts, received data, and are operating as expected," according to NASA's blog.
This marks the first "soft landing" on the moon by a private craft and the first under NASA's Artemis lunar program, as US astronauts are racing to arrive on Earth's natural satellite before China does.
Representing the first US attempt at a lunar touchdown in over half a century, this latest NASA moon mission is a pioneering venture by the private sector.
Exploring The Moon's Resources
NASA's ambitious Artemis program aims to land its first crewed mission in late 2026. The long-term lunar exploration plan relies on this endeavor, which might lead to human missions to Mars. The initiative targets the moon's south pole because of its projected amount of frozen water, which may be used for life support and rocket fuel development.
Earlier this month, NASA reported the completion of the initial phase of its Fission Surface Power Project, aiming to develop a compact, electricity-generating nuclear fission reactor for potential lunar use. The Fission Surface Power Project, a crucial element of NASA's pursuit of reliable energy sources for lunar exploration, awarded commercial partners three $5 million contracts in 2022.
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These contracts involve creating initial designs for a reactor, power conversion, heat rejection, power management, distribution systems, estimated costs, and development schedules. The goal is to support a sustained human presence on the lunar surface for at least a decade, aligning with NASA's Artemis program for lunar exploration.
NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate's Technology Demonstration Missions program director, Trudy Kortes, stressed the project's focus on the safety, cleanliness, and dependability of lunar nuclear power source.
(Photo: GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images) The solid rocket booster presents a firey spectacle as it separates from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket about three minutes after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center on the Intuitive Machines' Nova-C moon lander mission in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 15, 2024.
Changes on The Moon's Surface Threaten Lunar Missions
Technological advances in recent decades have spurred commercial space endeavors. The Apollo program and robot lunar surveyor missions succeeded before microchips, electrical sensors, software, and extremely lightweight metal alloys.
These have revolutionized spaceflight, spurring creative commercial space exploration enterprises.
Amid these developments in NASA's Artemis lunar mission, a recent discovery warned that the moon's surface is shrinking, which could affect future missions and colonies, as previously reported by TechTimes.
NASA has discovered that internal cooling causes lunar contraction, causing "thrust faults" and moonquakes, as seen during Apollo missions. The analysis warns of thrust faults around Artemis III landing locations despite a 2019 forecast of a 150-foot moon diameter shrinkage.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter-funded research suggests shallow moonquakes might disrupt the lunar South Pole's landing zones, threatening the Artemis program's strategy. Slip occurrences on thrust faults might cause ground shaking.
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