A Valentine’s Day Launch for the Next U.S. Moon Mission

Launch service provider SpaceX said today the first Intuitive Machines mission to the Moon is scheduled for launch on Valentine’s Day, February 14. Intuitive Machines is one of several companies participating in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program to deliver NASA and other payloads to the surface of the Moon. The first CLPS mission by another company, Astrobotic, in January failed. Now it is Intuitive Machines’ turn with the IM-1 mission. If all goes well, IM-1’s lander will touch down near the Moon’s South Pole on February 22.

Intuitive Machines and SpaceX have been coy about the IM-1 launch date, saying only it would be during a three-day window in “mid-February.” Confirmation that February 14 is the first of those days came during a briefing this morning on the upcoming launch of a completely separate NASA earth observation mission, PACE, scheduled for tomorrow.

SpaceX’s Julianna Schieman, Director of Civil Satellite Missions, mentioned the IM-1 launch would be “next week” and later clarified February 14 as the exact date with February 15 and February 16 as backups. Whichever of those three days it launches, landing is February 22.The routine Wet Dress Rehearsal where they fuel the rocket and practice the countdown is on February 7.

Later in the day Intuitive Machines issued a press release adding the launch time:  12:57 am ET on February 14.

NASA has contracts with four companies — Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Firefly, and Draper — to deliver payloads to various locations on the Moon over the next several years using robotic landers. NASA purchases delivery services only. The companies build and own the landers and acquire launch services. They are expected to find non-NASA customers to close the business case.

NASA established CLPS to encourage companies to develop commercial capabilities to deliver payloads to the Moon to support the Artemis program. NASA stresses these are not NASA missions. NASA may designate the landing site, but otherwise is just a customer. Each company has its own proprietary spacecraft design. The company and its launch service provider decide when they are ready to launch, not NASA. NASA is sending science and technology payloads on these CLPS missions recognizing they are riskier than most NASA missions. The agency says a 50-50 success rate is acceptable.

NASA is paying Houston-based Intuitive Machines $118 million for IM-1.

Intuitive Machines developed the Nova-C lander for these missions. This lander is named Odysseus.

 

Odysseus is carrying 12 payloads, six for NASA and six for other customers.

• ROLSES: Radio Observations of the Lunar Surface Photoelectron Sheath (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
• LRA: Laser Retro-Reflector Array (NASA Goddard)
• NDL: Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing (NASA Langley Research Center)
• SCALPSS: Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (NASA Langley)
• LN-1: Lunar Node 1 Navigation Demonstrator (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)
• RFMG: Radio Frequency Mass Gauge (NASA Glenn Research Center)
• Columbia Sportswear’s Omni-Heat Infinity material
• Embry-Riddle University’s EagleCam that will separate from the lander before touchdown and capture images as Odysseus reaches the surface
• Jeff Koons’ “Moon Phases” sculptures
• International Lunar Observatory Association’s ILO-X cameras
• Galactic Legacy Lab’s Lunaprise secure lunar repository
• Lonestar Data Holdings digital data center

Landing on the Moon is challenging. In just these first few weeks of 2024,  Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander suffered a propulsion failure enroute to the Moon, and Japan’s SLIM soft-landed, but upside down.

 

This article has been updated.