Tag Archives: Intuitive

Intuitive Machine: Athena Lander Reaches Moon, but Deems to Have Collapsed

Posted on by
Reply

IM-2 missions in low lunar orbits

An intuitive machine

The intuitive machine Athena Lander has reached the moon, but appears to have fallen. The Lander is still working, but it is not yet clear which part of the mission will still be able to achieve.

The spacecraft was mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida on February 27th. It landed on March 6th, but the landing was not completely successful, and the exact location or orientation of the lunar surface is still unknown.

“I don’t think we’re in the right attitude on the surface of the moon,” the CEO of the intuitive machine said. Stephen Altmus At a press conference just after landing. This is similar to the company’s last attempt at landing on the moon, the Odysseus spacecraft. It was the first time a private company had landed a spacecraft on the moon, but it turned over to its side and was unable to send much of the data back.

There are a variety of scientific instruments in Athena, but perhaps the most important of these are the regoliths and ice drills to explore new terrain (Trident), a NASA experiment designed to drill up to a maximum metre to a meter through the lunar soil. The purpose is to take samples from underground, analyze their contents, and search for water ice and other compounds.

“This experiment marks an important milestone as it will mark the first robotic drilling activity to be carried out in the Antarctic region of the lunar.” Jacqueline Quinn At KSC at a press conference on February 25th. If Trident is still working, “This is an important step in understanding and leveraging the moon’s resources to support future exploration,” she said.

As part of the IM-2 mission, Athena carried several rovers to the moon. One of them is called Grace after Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and mathematician, and unlike the rover that came before him, he is designed to fly around the surface, firing small boosters to dive into the air up to 100 meters, travelling about 200 meters. Grace aims to explore the strange, permanently shadowed craters of the moon.

Athena operators were able to send craft commands to turn it on and off and downlink some of their data to Earth. The solar panels also function to charge Lander electronics. That seems good news, but the team is still working to figure out which instruments can achieve some of their scientific goals, Altemus said.

This is part of a broader push to increase lunar exploration in preparation for planned human missions over the next decade. The Blue Ghost Lander at Firefly Aerospace arrived in the moon on March 2nd. Resilience Lander, a Japanese company Ispace, is on the way.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Athena, the intuitive moon lander machine, poised for explosive mission on the lunar surface

Posted on by
Reply

Artist's impression of the moon's Athena spaceship

NASA

This week, a private space mission was launched on the moon, aiming to reach the southernmost point we've ever visited on the moon. The Athena spacecraft, built by an intuitive US-based machine, will be released from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 12:17am on February 27th (7:17pm on February 26th). It will be installed on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Also, several other missions hitch on the same rocket, including expeditions that mine asteroids.

The intuitive machine became the first private company to succeed on the moon last year when Odysseus' spacecraft landed near the moon's Antarctica. The spacecraft's instruments remained in operation, but Odysseus made a troublesome landing, flipped over, limiting the amount of data the equipment could collect, and shortening the mission.

The company hopes for a cleaner landing as Athena begins its descent towards the end of March. The planned landing site is near the highest mountain on the moon, the lunar mewton, about 60 kilometers from Antarctica, and Athena's attempts have become the most southern approach to date. If the ship is successful, it will start a moon night and operate for several weeks on par with the moon in a day before it loses power.

Athena carries over 10 musical instruments and missions from both NASA and other private companies. That's not all. The Falcon 9, the same one that fires Athena at the moon, also carries three unrelated spacecraft. These are asteroid-controlled spacecraft from space company Astroforge, and the first mission of this kind will investigate potential minable metal space rocks later this year. You can also map water to the moon along with NASA's lunar satellite aboard, looking for future landing sites. The third spacecraft, built by epic aerospace, is designed to help other satellites move between orbits.

Once Athena lands, NASA instruments will excavate up to 1 meter into the lunar soil to sample it, then look at water sediments and other chemicals. NASA would like to know if these will be present in sufficient quantities for future astronauts to be used as part of the Artemis Moon Landing, which is planned for the agency to be released in 2027. It's there.

Several small rovers will also be released near the landing site, including the plant pot-sized Yaokirovers of Japanese company Dimon. The heavier 10kg mobile autonomous exploration platform (MAPP), built by Space Company Lunar Outspost, explores and creates 3D maps of landing sites, testing how the 4G phone network built by Nokia works in a Lunar environment. Masu. Sitting on a mapp will be a much smaller, ant-sized robot built by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The intuitive machine deploys a suitcase-sized hopping robot called Grace. Grace runs a series of four hops, jumping into the air up to 100 meters, travelling a distance of about 200 meters until it lands in a deep, permanently shaded crater. Scientists have seen evidence that these areas do not get warmer than -170°C (-274°F), but have never been visited in person. Grace scans the bottom of this crater. This crater is scanned for about 45 minutes, about 20 meters below, before popping out again.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

Intuitive Machines to Launch Spaceship Odysseus on Moon Mission

Posted on by
Reply

Odysseus spacecraft scheduled to launch to the moon on February 14th

space x

US company Intuitive Machines is soon to become the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon. Three previous efforts by other companies have failed, highlighting the perilous path ahead for Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander.

The spacecraft, nicknamed Odysseus, is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 14. It will fly aboard a Falcon 9 rocket manufactured by SpaceX. If the mission, called IM-1, goes well, Odysseus should land near the moon's south pole on February 22.

The goal of the IM-1 mission, in addition to proving that private companies can land on the moon, is to deliver six NASA payloads and five commercial payloads to the lunar surface. NASA's equipment includes tools to study how the landing itself blows away plumes of lunar dust, several instruments to help the aircraft land safely, and to measure radio waves and make sure they are on the moon's surface. Contains equipment to measure how it affects Commercial payloads include a camera that will be dumped from the lander before landing to take photos of the landing, and 125 small sculptures by artist Jeff Koons, designed to establish an archive of human knowledge on the lunar surface. Includes tip.

IM-1 is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, a series of government and private sector contracts designed to accelerate exploration and develop the lunar economy. This is his second mission in CLPS. The first mission, Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, suffered a fuel leak shortly after liftoff in January and failed to reach the moon.

There have been two attempts by private companies to land on the moon, SpaceIL's Beresheet spacecraft and iSpace's Hakuto-R, but both crash-landed and were destroyed. If Odysseus succeeds where other landers have failed, Intuitive Machines' next step will be to send another Nova-C lander to the moon's south pole, equipped with a drill to harvest subsurface ice. That mission is planned for March 2024.

topic:

Source: www.newscientist.com

SpaceX and Intuitive Machines delay lunar lander launch to February

Posted on by
Reply

intuitive machine The company announced earlier this week that it was working with launch provider SpaceX to postpone its first lunar lander mission to mid-February.

The Houston, Texas-based company said the new launch window “comes as a result of changes to SpaceX’s launch manifest due to adverse weather conditions.”

The new target launch date, one month later than the original January 12-16 date, is due to the mission profile. Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C spacecraft aims to land near the moon’s south pole and requires specific lighting conditions, including: There are only a few days each month.

The company is also constrained by launch infrastructure availability. The Lunar Module must be refueled with oxygen and methane propellant before liftoff, so it must launch from a specific launch site at NASA Kennedy Space Center, Launch Complex 39A. This pad is the only one equipped with a tower to provide access for refueling the lander.

In the original launch window, Nova-C was scheduled to land on the lunar surface on or shortly after January 19, as it was on a direct orbit to reach lunar orbit. Intuitive Machines has not disclosed the exact launch date, but it is increasingly likely that it will coincide with plans to land another privately developed lunar lander. The lander, Astrobotic’s Peregrine, aims to land on the moon on February 23rd. That means we could see two privately developed American spacecraft land on the moon in the same week.

Both landers were developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Lander Service (CLPS) program. This program is an effort to recruit commercial landers to transport science and research payloads to the lunar surface. Nova-C will carry her six payloads for NASA as part of this initial mission, and he has been awarded two additional CLPS contracts for her to deliver cargo to the Moon.

All in all, the new launch window is a negligible delay for Intuitive Machines, which aims to base its business on access to the moon’s surface.according to Presentation released last Septemberwhen the company announced it would go public through a merger with a blank check company, Intuitive Machines expected to generate $279 million in revenue from its lander services next year alone.

Intuitive Machines is also launching a business unit related to orbital services, such as maintaining and refueling satellites, providing data services to the moon, and selling other space products.

Source: techcrunch.com