The first US spaceship to land on the Moon in more than 50 years is slated to make history Thursday night when it’s hoped that Houston-based company Intuitive Machines’ six-legged robot will touch down near the lunar south pole. The mission’s main engine is scheduled to fire for nearly seven minutes in an orbital insertion maneuver, placing the Odysseus craft about 92 km (57 miles) above the lunar surface. That’s closer than the distance from Space City, Houston, to Spaceport America, where Odysseus was launched on a United Launch Alliance rocket this week.
Odysseus also referred to as the IM-1, is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which encourages private companies to build and operate spacecraft that the space agency can hire to deliver cargo and science instruments to the lunar surface. Odysseus is expected to carry a combination of commercial cargo and NASA research payloads.
If everything goes according to plan, Odysseus will reach Malapert A in the lunar south pole region. NASA hopes to establish a crewed base on this spot under its Artemis Moon-to-Mars program. The region is believed to contain water ice that could be used for life support and processed into rocket fuel for long-distance missions beyond the Moon.
The lander’s mission is designed to study the Moon’s environment before future human landings, including examining the Moon’s potential hazards, radio astronomy, and precision landing technologies. Intuitive Machines’ payloads include cameras to observe how the Moon’s surface reflects sunlight, a passive seismometer, and a device to measure the lunar dust cloud hanging in the atmosphere at twilight.
It’s been a rough road for the lander to get this far. Last month, another company, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology, tried to launch its Peregrine lander on its first mission under the CLPS program. But the spacecraft suffered a fuel leak shortly after leaving its rocket upper stage and had to be shut down before it reached the lunar surface.