Odysseus Private Moon Lander Successfully Launched
The private lunar lander Odysseus was successfully launched. NASA will use Odysseus to support Artemis.
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The Odysseus private Moon lander was launched using SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, on Thursday (15/2/2024) at 01.05 local time or 13.05 WIB. If there are no hindrances, the spacecraft made by the startup company Intuitive Machines is planned to land near the south pole of the Moon on February 22, 2024.
The private Moon lander, Odysseus, has successfully been launched. If there are no obstacles, Odysseus will land on the south pole of the Moon in a week's time. This landing will mark America's return to the Moon since 1972, as well as being the first private spacecraft to land on the lunar surface.
Odysseus was launched using SpaceX's Falcon 9 launcher rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States, on Thursday (15/2/2024) at 01.05 local time or 13.05 WIB. Around 7.5 minutes after launch, the first stage rocket landed back on Earth and Odysseus was directed towards the Moon transfer orbit 41 minutes later.
The 675-kilogram spacecraft, which is the size of a phone booth in London, UK, is expected to land on the Moon on February 22, 2024. Odysseus is planned to land in Malapert A, a small crater about 300 kilometers from the Moon's south pole. This success will pave the way for the next human landing on the Moon in the Artemis mission in the late 2020s.
Odysseus was created by the start-up company Intuitive Machines (IM), thus the spacecraft is also known as IM-1. The spacecraft was ordered by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CPLS) program to provide private lander robots and science instrument carriers to the Moon.
"This is a very unexpected moment for us at IM," said IM vice president of space systems Trent Martin as quoted by Space, Thursday (15/2/2024).
Through CPLS, NASA is able to send spacecraft to the Moon at a more cost-effective price. For the development of Odysseus and its landing on the Moon, IM received funding from NASA amounting to 118 million US dollars or 1.85 trillion Indonesian rupiah. NASA still needs to spend 11 million US dollars or 172 billion Indonesian rupiah to develop a number of scientific instruments that will be carried by Odysseus.
Apart from IM, another company that managed to secure a contract from NASA is Astrobotic, which created a landing vehicle called Peregrine. Peregrine was launched on January 8, 2024 using the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur launch rocket and went smoothly.
However, after Peregrine was released from the upper rocket, the spacecraft experienced a fuel leak. As a result, Peregrine could not continue the journey to the Moon. The spacecraft eventually fell back under control, re-entered the Earth's environment, and ultimately burned up in the upper atmosphere on January 18, 2024.
Also read: Japan Becomes the Fifth Country to Successfully Land on the Moon
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft owned by NASA captured an image of the Moon's bright side, or the part of the Moon visible from Earth.
Full attention
The launch of IM-1 on Thursday was the launch of this vehicle for the third time. The first launch, as quoted from BBC, took place in January 2024 which was then postponed due to bad weather.
The second launch attempt of Odysseus was conducted on Wednesday (14/2/2024) or the day before. However, the launch was postponed due to technical problems during fueling. The failure experienced by Peregrine, as the first spacecraft launched in the CPLS program, certainly does not want to be repeated.
NASA attributes the delay of Odysseus' launch to the detection of an inaccurate temperature of liquid methane. This liquid methane is used as a propellant or driving material for the propulsion and landing fuel system of the probe. The methane is filled a moment before the launch and it was during this process that the problem occurred.
The launch window for Odysseus this time is between February 14 and 16, 2022 with a single moon landing time on February 22, 2024. If the spacecraft fails to launch during that time frame, the launch of IM-1 may be postponed until March 2024.
NASA will heavily utilize the vehicle in support of future Artemis missions which aim to return humans to the Moon and establish a crewed base as part of human colonization on the Moon.
"We always consider the initial shipment of CLPS as a first experience. It serves as a learning tool and shows us how we should react during the launch process," added one representative from the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Joel Kearns.
Not only that, to support the success of the mission, NASA is also studying the factors of what other countries did to successfully land their spacecraft on the Moon. However, landing a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon remains a significant challenge for many space agencies.
So far, only the US, the Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan have successfully landed on the moon. However, Russia's attempt to continue the success of the Soviet space mission to land its spacecraft back on the moon in 2023 ultimately failed.
A privately-owned Moon lander spacecraft called Odysseus, made by startup company Intuitive Machines, was exhibited in Houston, Texas on October 27, 2023. The spacecraft was finally launched on Thursday (15/2/2024) after its launch was postponed in January and February due to several issues.
Scientific mission
Therefore, NASA pays full attention to the efforts of landing Odysseus as the second mission of CPLS. This is because NASA will use the spacecraft extensively to support the Artemis mission in the future, which aims to land humans back on the Moon and establish a human colony there, including a manned base.
"Odysseus' landing will be the first opportunity for the US to once again land its vehicle on the Moon since 1972," added Martin. The last time the US landed on the Moon was during the Apollo 17 mission, which was the last manned landing mission on the Moon. Therefore, this effort will open up greater opportunities for the US to explore the Moon."
Odysseus launches with six scientific experiment gadgets belonging to NASA. Among the scientific instruments are Radio Observations of the Lunar Surface Photoelectron Sheath (Rolses), which will characterize electron plasma and radio environment near the IM-1 landing site. There is also the Lase Retro-Reflector Array (LRA) as a guide to help the landings of spacecraft on the moon precisely.
In addition, there is also Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing (NDL) that will collect super-precision data during the descent and landing of the spacecraft. Furthermore, there are Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (Scalpss) that will study the interaction between the exhaust plume of the Odysses propulsion engine and the Moon's terrain and rocks for the design of spacecraft landing engines on the Moon in the future.
There is also the Lunar Node 1 Navigation Demonstrator (LN-1), which is a small radio navigation sound to assist lunar rovers and landers and is expected to become a sort of position indicator on the Moon in the future. Lastly, there is the Radio Frequency Mass Gauge Statement (RFMG), which is a device used to measure the remaining fuel in the Odysseus's tanks.
In addition to NASA scientific equipment, Odysseus also carries six commercial payloads from various clients. These commercial payloads include those from the sportswear company Columbia Sportswear, who will be testing the "Omni-Heat Infinity" insulation material inside Odysseus.
There is also a set of sculptures by Jeff Koons and secure storage to protect all human knowledge on the Moon in case something bad happens on Earth. In addition, there is EagleCam, a camera developed by students from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, USA, which will be used to capture images of the surface of the Moon during the Odysseus landing.
Although the success of Odysseus's landing on the Moon is still far away, high hopes are pinned on this spacecraft. If successful, it will be the first privately owned landing craft on the Moon, breaking the monopoly of government agencies in lunar missions as has been done in the past.
Also read: India Tries to Land on the Moon Again
Furthermore, this success will usher in a new era for human exploration of outer space and the conquest of the Moon. In fact, private companies can also play a role in space exploration.
