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While Intuitive Machines soft-landing on the moon yesterday was successful, and the first by an American spacecraft in over fifty years, the news today is not all good: the company thinks that Odysseus, the company’s lunar lander is highly tilted or perhaps on its side.
On February 22, 2024, the Intuitive Machines (IM) spacecraft named Odysseus became the first American craft to successfully make a soft moon landing since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Odysseus came to rest near the South Polar region where it is hoped that ice and therefore water will be found.
Intuitive Machines has confirmed that the IM-1 Nova-C class lunar lander “Odysseus” touched down on the surface of the Moon today, sometime around 6:30 PM EST. The exact time of touchdown is not yet known, as the company has not yet downloaded and released data from the spacecraft.
T-minus one day and counting as America prepares for the historic landing of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander Odysseus near the lunar south pole. The uncrewed mission, which launched from Kennedy Space Center six days ago has so far gone off without a hitch.
Do you have the “right stuff” to live on Mars for a year? If your answer is yes, then here is a chance to prove it. NASA has issued an open call for four candidates to live and work in the CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration) Habitat next year .
In a recent Department of The Air Force announcement, the Air Force said environmental studies are underway for a potential new launch facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station or Kennedy Space Center.
The Department of the Air Force (DAF),in conjunction with the FAA, NASA, and the U.S. Coast Guard are currently undertaking environmental impact studies of several potential Cape Canaveral/KSC launch sites for SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship rocket.
This Valentines Day, SpaceX is setting hearts aflutter with not one, but two rocket launches. The Falcon 9 rockets are scheduled to take off from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
In the early hours of Thursday, NASA’s latest Earth science mission began its journey to space, marking the start of a mission to better our understanding of the planet’s marine life and atmospheric conditions.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California announced the imminent layoff of 530 employees on Tuesday in a round of NASA budget cuts. The lab is funded by NASA and managed by CalTech. The layoffs come at a time when federal funding is sketchy, but private industry is ramping up Commercial Spaceflight at a record pace.
“Without an approved federal budget including final allocation for MSR FY24 funding levels, NASA previously directed JPL to plan for an MSR budget of $300M. This is consistent with the low end of congressional markups of NASA’s budget and a 63% decrease over the FY23 level.”
Source: JPL
For 10 days in January, the Peregrine Lunar Lander, made by US company Astrobotic, kept spaceflight observers on the edge of their seat. Peregrine, the first US lunar lander in over 50 years was to mark our country’s return to the moon. More importantly, the landing was a major step in sending a manned lander to the moon in 2026 under the Artemis program. A propellant leak cut that mission short, and eventually scuttled it with the craft making a fiery return to earth.
In an era where understanding Earth’s climate dynamics is more critical than ever, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, will be a vital asset to furthering and tracking our knowledge of the Planet. Set to launch from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40, this mission embodies the culmination of years of meticulous planning and collaboration between NASA and SpaceX, aiming to extend our comprehension of the planet’s climate system and its intricate processes. Lift is set for 1:33am Tuesday morning with the first stage booster returning to LZ 1 at CCSFS.
