SpaceX rockets launch moon lander, military satellites in Valentine's doubleheader from Cape
It's been a colorful month for moon landers. First, Astrobotic's Peregrine robotic lander malfunctioned in space, never reached the lunar surface, and burned up in Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 18.
Then the next day, Japan's uncrewed SLIM lander pulled off a precision touchdown on the moon's surface — but the lunar unexpectedly landed on its nose and took nine days to resume scientific operations, The Planetary Society reported.
Now, Intuitive Machines' first Nova-C moon lander — named Odysseus — is next in line for the arduous undertaking. Similar in size and shape to the TARDIS time machine featured in "Doctor Who," the robotic lander soared off pad 39A at 1:05 a.m. EST Thursday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center. The spacecraft should land on the moon in roughly eight days.
"It's very difficult, but that doesn't mean we don't try," Bob Thirsk, a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut who spent 188 days aboard the International Space Station in 2009, said of landing on the moon.
"The ultimate destination for humanity is Mars. The dream destination for astronauts is Mars. And we cannot go to Mars directly. There are too many technologies that we need to develop and validate before we're ready to send the first crew to Mars," Thirsk said.
"And the moon will function as a testbed to test out and validate these technologies," he said.
USSF-124 lifts six military satellites
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About 7? hours before the Intuitive Machines IM-1 liftoff into lunar transfer orbit, a different SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the Space Force's USSF-124 national security mission at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday from Launch Complex 40 at adjacent Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The USSF-124 Falcon 9 lifted two satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and four infrared satellites for the Space Development Agency into orbit. SpaceX's launch webcast provided insight about the six secretive satellites.
"SpaceX will be delivering two prototype satellites to orbit as part of the (MDA) Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program," said Youmei Zhou, a SpaceX Dragon propulsion engineer.
"When fully operational, the system will detect hypersonic, ballistic and other advanced threats earlier than terrestrial radars, providing hypersonic threat-tracking data to hand over to the U.S. ballistic missile defense system," Zhou said.
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L3Harris Technologies delivered the four infrared tracking satellites, which will complete a 27-satellite missile-defense constellation, an SDA press release said. Earlier this year, the aerospace giant received a $919 million contract to develop an 18-satellite SDA missile-tracking constellation.
“Our advanced satellites on orbit will bring the integrated and resilient missile warning and defense capabilities the U.S. requires against adversaries developing more advanced maneuverable missiles,” Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik said in a press release.
EagleCam developed by Embry-Riddle students
The moon lander Odysseus is also carrying EagleCam, a miniature satellite camera system developed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students in Daytona Beach.
EagleCam is engineered to jettison from the lander about 100 feet above the moon's surface, then capture a series of images of the descending spacecraft. The students hope the device accomplishes a trio of "firsts:"
The first university student-built project to land on the moon.
The first device to photograph a "selfie" of a spacecraft making an extraterrestrial landing.
The first device to use Wi-Fi on the lunar surface.
“EagleCam will probably record enough data for Ph.D. students to analyze in dissertations for the next 10 years,” Troy Henderson, EagleCam faculty advisor and director of Embry?Riddle’s Space Technologies Laboratory, said in a press release. “The scientific return is enormous.”
Thirsk also noted Toronto-based Canadensys Aerospace built a miniaturized dual-camera lunar imaging suite carried by Odysseus. The goal: Capture some of the first images of the Milky Way Galaxy's center from the moon's surface.
Moon-landing technology 'still difficult'
Founded in 2013, Intuitive Machines is a Houston-headquartered vendor company in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
"This mission’s primary objective is to deliver a variety of payloads to the Moon’s south pole region, a part of the Moon that remains unexplored," an Intuitive Machines press kit said.
"These payloads include scientific instruments and technology demonstrations that aim to pave the way for future human and robotic exploration of the Moon," the press kit said.
Odysseus should orbit the Moon about a dozen times before descending to the surface, the company reported.
"This upcoming mission will certainly help us to test and validate some of the landing technology — which is still difficult," Thirsk said of Intuitive Machines' lander.
In 1996, Thirsk flew aboard space shuttle Columbia on the 17-day STS-78 mission. Thirteen years later, he became the first Canadian to serve a long-duration mission aboard the ISS.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY . Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX launches moon lander, military satellites back-to-back from Cape
