It hopes to become the first private company to successfully land on the Moon. After technical problems which led to the abandonment of a first attempt the day before, SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket carrying the Nova-C lander from the company Intuitive Machines, took off from Florida on Wednesday night 14 to Thursday, February 15, at 1:06 a.m. “Confirmed: The Nova-C lander has detached and continues its journey to the Moon,” NASA, the US space agency, wrote on X.
The mission, named IM-1, carries the moon lander developed by the Texan company founded in 2013. The copy used for this first mission was named Odysseus. If all goes as hoped, the device will attempt to land on the Moon on Thursday February 22.
The operation was more delicate than the usual takeoffs for SpaceX, which had to fill the lander with cryogenic fuel (liquid methane and oxygen), just before filling its own rocket. A problem concerning the temperature of the methane was encountered during the first attempt, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, prompting the postponement.
After takeoff, the lander detached from the upper stage of the rocket before being powered up. Then communication had to be established with the Intuitive Machines control room, located in Houston, Texas. A first thrust of the engine is then planned, in order to check its operation and adjust the trajectory towards the Moon.
No successful private moon landing yet
India and Japan recently successfully landed on the lunar surface, becoming the fourth and fifth countries to successfully complete the operation, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China. But several private companies, including another American company, have failed, for the moment, to reproduce this feat.
If Intuitive Machines succeeds, it would be a historic milestone for the space sector, which would also mark the first landing of an American spacecraft on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program, more than fifty years ago.
The mission is part of a new program called CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services), set up by NASA, which has commissioned private companies to take scientific equipment to the Moon , in order to prepare for the return of astronauts. By relying on the private sector, the American space agency says it can send more material, more frequently and for less than with vehicles belonging to it. The contract signed by NASA for this first Intuitive Machines mission amounts to $118 million (€109 million).
The model of the lander sent is called Nova-C, and measures more than four meters high. The copy used for this first mission was named Odysseus. It is carrying six private cargoes, including sculptures by contemporary artist Jeff Koons representing the phases of the Moon. But above all it carries six scientific instruments from NASA, the main client for this trip.
Several other private missions planned
The planned landing site is a crater near the South Pole of the Moon, which is still little explored. The lunar South Pole is important for NASA, because it is there that it wants to land its astronauts, starting in 2026 at the earliest, as part of the Artemis missions. The reason: there is water there in the form of ice, which could be exploited. The six scientific instruments on board should make it possible to study this particular environment.
Four cameras will observe, for example, the descent phase and the dust projected during landing, in order to compare its effects to those of the Apollo moon landings, carried out closer to the equator.
The first American company, Astrobotic, also under contract with NASA for the CLPS program, failed to reach the Moon in January. A new test to send its Peregrine moon lander as well as two other Intuitive Machines missions (IM-2 and IM-3) are already planned this year. A third American company, Firefly Aerospace, is also due to attempt the adventure in 2024. The tests of other companies, Israeli and Japanese, ended in crashes in 2019 and 2023.
