Takeoff of a new American private moon lander

A rocket carrying the lunar lander of a young American company which hopes to become the first private company to successfully land on the Moon took off early Thursday, the day after technical problems.

The mission, named IM-1, carries the moon lander developed by the Texan company Intuitive Machines, founded in 2013. The takeoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying it took place at 1:06 a.m. Thursday in Florida (1 06:06 a.m. Eastern Time) in the United States.

A first launch attempt had to be abandoned during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. The operation is more delicate than usual takeoffs for SpaceX, which must fill the lander with its cryogenic fuel (liquid methane and oxygen), just before filling its own rocket.

A problem concerning the temperature of the methane led to the postponement of the first attempt.

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.

“Confirmed: the Nova-C lander has detached and continues its journey to the Moon,” wrote NASA, the American space agency, on the social network X.

After takeoff, once the lander was detached from the upper stage of the rocket, communication had to be established with the Intuitive Machines control room, located in Houston, Texas.

A first thrust of the engine was then planned, in order to check its operation and adjust the trajectory towards the Moon.

The trip will be quick: if everything goes as hoped, the device will attempt to land on the Moon next week, February 22.

India and Japan recently successfully landed on the lunar surface, becoming the fourth and fifth countries to do so, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.

But several private companies, including another American company, have failed 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 50 years ago.

Lunar South Pole

The moon lander 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.

The mission is part of a new program called CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services), set up by the American space agency which has tasked private companies with taking scientific equipment to the Moon in order to prepare for the return of astronauts.

By relying on the private sector, NASA says it can send more material, more frequently and for less than with vehicles it owns.

The contract signed by NASA for this first Intuitive Machines mission amounts to $118 million.

The planned landing site is a crater near the Moon’s south pole, which is still little explored.

The lunar South Pole is important for NASA because it is there that it wants to land its astronauts from 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, for example, observe 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.

Several missions planned

The first American company, Astrobotic, also under contract with NASA for the CLPS program, failed to reach the Moon in January.

A new Astrobotic test, as well as two other Intuitive Machines missions (IM-2 and IM-3), are already planned for this year.

A third American company, Firefly Aerospace, is also due to attempt the adventure in 2024.

Tests by other companies, Israeli and Japanese, ended in crashes in 2019 and 2023.