Private US moon lander launched half century after last Apollo lunar mission (updated)

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15/02/2024 07:53

(Adds details of lander craft's separation, the first signal
acquisition and power-up, orientation sequence, paragraphs 4-6)
    By Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman
       CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A moon
lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive
Machines was launched from Florida early on Thursday on a
mission to conduct the first U.S. lunar touchdown in more than a
half century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.
    The company's Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, lifted off
shortly after 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) atop a two-stage Falcon 9
rocket flown by Elon Musk' SpaceX from NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Cape Canaveral.
    A live NASA-SpaceX online video feed showed the two-stage,
25-story rocket roaring off the launch pad and streaking into
the dark sky over Florida's Atlantic coast, trailed by a fiery
yellowish plume of exhaust.
    About 48 minutes after launch, the six-legged lander was
shown being released from Falcon 9's upper stage about 139 miles
above Earth and drifting away on its voyage to the moon.
        "IM-1 Odysseus lunar lander separation confirmed," a
mission controller was heard saying.
  
        Moments later, mission operations in Houston received
its first radio signals from Odysseus as the lander began an
automated process of powering on its systems and orienting
itself in space, according to webcast commentators.
  
         Although considered an Intuitive Machines mission, the
IM-1 flight is carrying six NASA payloads of instruments
designed to gather data about the lunar environment ahead of
NASA's planned return of astronauts to the moon later this
decade. 
    Thursday's launch came a month after the lunar lander of
another private firm, Astrobotic Technology, suffered a
propulsion system leak on its way to the moon shortly after
being placed in orbit on Jan. 8 by a United Launch Alliance
(ULA) Vulcan rocket making its debut flight. 
    The failure of Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, which was also
flying NASA payloads to the moon, marked the third time a
private company had been unable to achieve a "soft landing" on
the lunar surface, following ill-fated efforts by companies from
Israel and Japan.
    Those mishaps illustrated the risks NASA faces in leaning
more heavily on the commercial sector than it had in the past to
realize its spaceflight goals.
    Plans call for Odysseus to reach its destination after a
weeklong flight, with a Feb. 22 landing at crater Malapert A
near the moon's south pole. 
    If successful, the flight would represent the first
controlled descent to the lunar surface by a U.S. spacecraft
since the final Apollo crewed moon mission in 1972, and the
first by a private company.
    The feat also would mark the first journey to the lunar
surface under NASA's Artemis moon program, as the U.S. races to
return astronauts to Earth's natural satellite before China
lands its own crewed spacecraft there.
    IM-1 is the latest test of NASA's strategy of paying for the
use of spacecraft built and owned by private companies to slash
the cost of the Artemis missions, envisioned as precursors to
human exploration of Mars.
    By contrast, during the Apollo era, NASA bought rockets and
other technology from the private sector, but owned and operated
them itself.
    NASA announced last month that it was delaying its target
date for a first crewed Artemis moon landing from 2025 to late
2026, while China has said it was aiming for 2030. 
     Small landers such as Nova-C are expected to get there
first, carrying instruments to closely survey the lunar
landscape, its resources and potential hazards. Odysseus will
focus on space weather interactions with the moon's surface,
radio astronomy, precision landing technologies and navigation.
    Intuitive Machine's IM-2 mission is scheduled to land at the
lunar south pole in 2024, followed by an IM-3 mission later in
the year with several small rovers.
    Last month, Japan became the fifth country to place a lander
on the moon, with its space agency JAXA achieving an unusually
precise "pinpoint" touchdown of its SLIM probe last month. Last
year, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon, after
Russia failed in an attempt the same month.
    The United States, the former Soviet Union and China are the
only other countries that have carried out successful soft lunar
touchdowns. China scored a world first in 2019 by achieving the
first landing on the far side of the moon.    

 (Reporting by Joe Skipper in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Steve
Gorman in Los Angeles. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
 ((steve.gorman@thomsonreuters.com; 310-491-7256; Reuters
Messaging: steve.gorman.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))