The American company Intuitive Machines will try to land on the Moon after 50 years. It would achieve the first landing of a US probe on the moon since the Apollo program in 1972.
The company will try to land on the Moon next Thursday
A spaceship built and piloted by the company Intuitive Machinesbased in Houston, sailed Thursday around the Moon to attempt the first US landing in the lunar surface in more than half a century, and the first carried out entirely by the private sector.
The truth is that the United States has more than 50 years without landing on the Moonto which they intend to send astronauts starting in 2026. None of the private companies that tried succeeded, therefore, all eyes will be on the Intuitive Machines attempt.
What is the robotic van that made its first landing on the Moon like?
He six-legged robotic lander, named Odysseus, was to begin the final descent from lunar orbit with an explosion of its main engine approximately one hour before landing, scheduled for 2124 GMT on Thursday, according to the company’s latest flight plan. The vehicle, whose objective is a crater called Malapert TO near the Moon’s south pole, it carries a suite of scientific instruments and technology samples for NASA and several commercial customers designed to run for seven days on solar power before the sun sets over the polar landing site.
Valley of the moon
The Natural Route.
The US space agency’s payload will focus on collecting data on the interactions of space weather with the lunar surface, radio astronomy and other aspects for future lunar landings and the return of astronauts planned by NASA for the end of this decade.
What was the landing of the ship on the Moon like?
The ship, Unmanned, it has been circling the Moon about 92 kilometers above the surface since reaching orbit on Wednesday, six days after being launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. , Florida. Odysseus remained “in excellent health”” as it continued to orbit the Moon, about 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from Earth, transmitting flight data and lunar images to Intuitive Machines’ mission control center in Houston, the company said Wednesday.
If the landing is successful, The IM-1 mission would represent the first controlled descent to the lunar surface of an American spacecraft since Apollo 17 in 1972, when NASA’s last manned lunar mission touched down there with astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.
To date, only four other countries have landed on the Moon: the former Soviet Union, China, India and, more recently, Japan. The United States is the only country that sent humans to the lunar surface.
Source: Ambito
