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.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 4-10, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate and House are in session for at least part of this week.

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Lunar night has descended on JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, in the Shioli crater on the Moon. For the next 14 Earth days, temperatures will drop below 200 degrees Fahrenheit and the sky will be pitch dark. SLIM was not designed to survive those conditions, but JAXA will try to communicate with it again after sunrise in mid-February just in case it does.

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Voyager Space and Airbus announced today they will launch their Starlab commercial space station on SpaceX’s Starship. Unlike the International Space Station and other space station concepts, Starlab can be put into space with just one launch rather than assembled in orbit.

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JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, has resumed operations on the lunar surface. SLIM landed upside down because of an engine failure leaving the solar cells pointing in the wrong direction. But the sun’s angle has changed over the past several days and the solar cells are now recharging the battery.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com over the last week, January 22-28, 2024, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 28-February 3, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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A NASA spacecraft orbiting the Moon has spotted JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, that landed on the surface last week. The lander already was imaged much more closely by one of SLIM’s tiny rovers, LEV-2, showing it landed upside down. Now it turns out one of the engine nozzles fell off during descent.

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NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has made its last flight on Mars. The plucky technology demonstrator that engineers were not sure would fly at all in the thin Martian atmosphere made 72 flights over almost three years. A damaged rotor blade brought an end to its flying days.

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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency confirmed today that the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, achieved its primary objective of demonstrating pinpoint landing accuracy. By JAXA’s criteria, that alone makes SLIM fully successful even though an engine malfunction caused it to land upside down in a position where the solar cells cannot recharge the battery. It operated for only for a few hours, but they are holding out hope operations may be restored when the sun angle changes.

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