KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Just a month after a moon lander failed to reach the lunar surface, another space company has a chance to make history.
In January, NASA started the first mission of its program to send private, uncrewed landers to scout out the moon before astronauts have the chance to do so starting with the Artemis III mission.
It didn’t work out for Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, so now the NOVA-C lander from Intuitive Machines looks to become the first private American spacecraft to land on the moon.
The spacecraft launched early Thursday on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
In a teleconference Monday, project scientist Sue Lederer told us more about how these landers lay the groundwork for NASA’s long-term goals of science and exploration on the moon.
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“The goal here is for us to investigate the moon in preparation for Artemis,” Lederer of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services said. “These commercial companies will be bringing our instruments along for the ride enabling our investigations.”
The CEO of Intuitive Machines said his company is excited for the opportunity.
“We’re just moments away from liftoff of our first, historic mission to return the United States to the moon,” Steve Altemus said. “In terms of pressure, the team is laser-focused. We’ve done everything we could to deliver the best system we could possibly deliver.”
Altemus also talked with News 6 reporter James Sparvero about the experiments onboard like a payload that films dust ejecting from the lunar surface.
“So we get a really good understanding of how that dust plume moves without an atmosphere so that when designing systems like habitats and landing pads, we can understand what the detrimental effects of that dust impinging on them might be,” Altemus said.
Just a month ago, the first company to try under this new NASA program, Astrobotic, failed when its Peregrine lander suffered a fuel leak and later burned up in the atmosphere.
Altemus talked about how NASA said the science on his lander can help pave the way for astronauts to explore the moon again.
One of those innovations includes a visually-appealing idea from students at Altemus’ alma mater, Embry-Riddle.
“It’s the EagleCam payload, and it’s the one that the students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University have produced that ejects a camera,” Altemus said. “So as we’re approaching the surface of the moon, and as we land, the camera falls to the surface and takes a picture of our landing. And so we will get the first selfie, or bird’s eye view of landing on a celestial body. That picture has never been taken and we’re looking forward to that awesome photo.”
Dr. Troy Henderson, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at ERAU, told News 6 that no matter the outcome of the mission, the team behind the EagleCam will have “a significant amount of data to work on for quite a number of years.”
“EagleCam began in the late summer of 2019, where we were challenged to build the cube sat system that would deploy and take the world’s first third-person view of a spacecraft landing...” Henderson said. “I’m really proud of this team.”
The deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Exploration, Science Mission Directorate addressed the media in a teleconference on Tuesday.
“All six NASA science and technology payloads on Intuitive Machines Mission 1 are go for launch,” Joel Kearns said. “I want to highlight that landing on the moon is extremely challenging. You’ve probably seen that all over the past year.”
The launch was originally set for Wednesday morning, though it was pushed back due to technical issues.
Following the launch, NASA says the lander will touch down on the moon eight days later on the 22nd.
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