Sneaking into SpaceX/intuitive to get a Quick Look at the New Moon Lander The Odysseus”

Another month, another try at the moon.

A robotic lunar lander launched into space early Thursday morning. If all goes well, on Feb. 22 it will become the first American spacecraft to gently set down on the moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972.

It would also become the first private effort to reach the surface of the moon in one piece. Three earlier attempts, by an American company, a Japanese company and an Israeli nonprofit, failed.

The company in charge of this mission, Intuitive Machines of Houston, is optimistic.

“I feel fairly confident that we’re going to be successful softly touching down on the moon,” Stephen Altemus, the president and chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in an interview. “We’ve done the tests. We tested and tested and tested. As much testing as we could do.”

1:05 a.m. Eastern time, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the lander lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending the lander on a direct trajectory toward the moon. Intuitive Machines reported less than hour later that the spacecraft separated from the rocket’s second stage and successfully turned itself on. The spacecraft can keep itself pointed in proper direction, its solar panels are generating power and it is in radio contact with Intuitive Machines’ mission control in Houston, the company said later on Thursday morning.

“We are keenly aware of the immense challenges that lie ahead,” Mr. Altemus said in a statement. “However, it is precisely in facing these challenges head-on that we recognize the magnitude of the opportunity before us: to softly return the United States to the surface of the moon for the first time in 52 years.”

Intuitive Machines calls its spacecraft design Nova-C. It is a hexagonal cylinder with six landing legs, about 14 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Intuitive Machines notes that the body of the lander is roughly the size of an old British police telephone booth — that is, like the Tardis in the “Doctor Who” science fiction television show.

#lunarlander #intuitive #spacex

Music credit

https://youtube.com/@WhiteBatAudio?si=RiWzvWkoww2T2iSN

moon anomaly
anomaly on the moon
dark side of the moon
mystery of the moon
aliens on the moon
ufo
ufo 2020
space anomalies
alien base on the Moon
ufo video 2020
anomalies 2020
NASA ufo video
NASA ufo photos
mysterious
moon mystery
aliens
UFO caught
structure on moon
moon base
base on moon
NASA ufo
man on the moon
mystery
ufo crash
ufo sightings
OVNI
OVNI 2020
ufo on the moon
lunar ufo
alien
alien life
lunar aliens
ovni nas

source