Florida, 15 February 2024 (WAI): The successful launch of “Odysseus” by Intuitive Machines became the first lunar mission to be achieved by a privately owned company, making it the second moon mission by the US since the Apollo Missions more than fifty years ago. Intuitive Machines conferred its lander with the name of Homer’s hero from The Odyssey.
The spacecraft, developed by the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, departed from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:05 a.m. ET, riding into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission was titled “IM-1”. Initially planned for Wednesday, the launch faced postponement due to a glitch with the rocket’s methane fuel, prompting SpaceX to stand down.
It aims to function near the moon’s south pole, where Intuitive Machines intends for its 14-foot (4.3-m) tall, six-legged lander to touch down – an area rife with hazardous craters and cliffs yet potentially abundant with frozen water. This region is the designated landing site for NASA’s future astronaut missions later this decade. The space agency indicated that its six navigation and tech experiments on the lander can facilitate this objective.
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The lander is ready to spend a week in space before attempting to settle on the moon on Feb 22. NASA awarded Intuitive Machines $118m to transport its latest experiments to the moon. Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India, and Japan – have achieved a lunar landing, with no private business having done so yet. NASA, the primary financier with experiments on board, aims to kickstart the lunar economy before astronaut missions commence.
If successful, the SpaceX launch will represent a significant achievement toward Elon Musk’s objective of sending humans to Mars. On Tuesday afternoon, Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science mission directorate, told reporters, “Either the information we acquire or the physical site will serve as our launchpad for sending humans to Mars and other planets beyond.”
However, Bill Gerstenmaier, Vice President at SpaceX, remarked, “This is not an easy mission for us; there’s no guarantee of success on this mission. But we’ve worked extensively with Intuitive Machines to buy down as much risk as possible.”
I am currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations. My areas of interest include Current Affairs, Diplomacy and International Political Economy.
