So far so good for Odysseus moon lander’s journey of jeopardy into everlasting shadow – however there is a perilous descent to return
Odysseus is on its epic journey to the moon.
The 240,000-mile voyage is one in all jeopardy and problem for the spacecraft, simply because it was for its namesake within the Greek delusion.
Even reaching the launch pad was an achievement.
NASA contracted the Texas-based Intuitive Machines to take a number of devices to the moon for a hard and fast value of $116m (£94m).
That’s nicely under what it might value NASA to undertake the identical mission. NASA believes that personal firms can innovate new methods of attending to the moon for much less cash.
Lift-off – because it occurred:
SpaceX rocket launches for moon’s south pole
Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander separating from the rocket and heading in direction of the moon. (SpaceX -NASA TV through AP)
So far the mission has gone to plan.
The launch on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket was textbook. Exactly 48 minutes later the phone-box-sized spacecraft was launched on the right track for a lunar touchdown on 22 February.
It might be a dangerous descent to the moon’s south pole.
The area has many extra craters, cliffs and boulders than the equator, the place the Apollo landings have been within the 60s and 70s.
And the solar, low on the moon’s polar horizon, additionally casts deep shadows that may confuse the automated touchdown methods of spacecraft.
But it is these shadows which might be the explanation for going to the pole.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 launching from Kennedy Space Center. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today through AP)
Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 Nova-C lunar lander in Houston in October 2023. (AP)
Inside completely shadowed ‘craters of everlasting darkness’ the temperatures are as little as -230C – simply chilly sufficient to freeze water in layers of ice, or maybe Arctic-style permafrost.
That would supply hydration for astronauts. Split the water molecule, H2O, and also you even have oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to make rocket gas.
Suddenly a moon base begins to make extra sense, with astronauts capable of keep for extended missions.
But first scientists have to get spacecraft into the craters to see how a lot ice there’s.
And Odysseus is the beginning of that, testing out tools wanted for future precision landings in such a hazardous area of the moon.