Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission launch today at 7:16 pm ET for a March 6 landing near the lunar south pole.
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Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission launch today at 7:16 pm ET for a March 6 landing near the lunar south pole.
Goals: To demonstrate lunar mobility, resource prospecting incl ice and analysis of subsurface gases.
Carries an ambitious set of science payloads incl –
An ice-drill and mass spectrometer to detect ice and gases, from NASA.
The Lunar Outpost MAPP rover.
A Hopper named Grace to explore nearby craters.
A miniaturized rover.
A 4G/LTE wireless network from Nokiahttps://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2
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Here is a slick animation of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 Lunar Mission covering the sequence of events from launch, to landing and surface operations.
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Here is a graphic illustrating the trajectory of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 spacecraft.
Unlike the other two recently launched missions to the moon, IM-2 will take a direct path to the moon and land 8 days after launch.
Surface operations will last less than 2 weeks before the brutally cold lunar night ends the mission.
https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2
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Here is a map of the south polar region of the moon and the approx. landing site of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lander.
The landing site on Mons Mouton is ~160 km from the South pole, a new record.
Mons Mouton is a wide, relatively flat-topped mountain, created over billions of years by lunar impacts. It is the tallest mountain on the moon at 6 km altitude.
The Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) in the area are of special interest for presence of water ice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_Mouton
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Mons Mouton is named after Melba Mouton (Apr 28, 1929 – Jun 25, 1990) a trailblazing mathematician and computer programmer at NASA.
Mouton joined NASA Goddard in 1959. She became the head mathematician and led a group of ‘human computers’, who tracked the Echo 1 and 2 satellites, launched into Earth orbit in 1960 and 1964 resp.
In 1961, Mouton was the head programmer responsible for the Mission and Trajectory Analysis Division’s Program Systems Branch.
https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau2301/
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The IM-2 Micro Nova Hopper will explore multiple difficult-to-reach areas by firing hydrazine rockets in controlled bursts to hop across short distances. The penultimate hop will be 20m deep inside a crater.
The 70-cm tall, 35-kg hopper contains propulsion and navigation systems, Lidar, and navigation and landing cameras. The hopper will communicate with the lander through an LTE system.
The hopper is named after computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1162.pdf
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A sobering reminder that space is hard, landing even harder.
The success rate for lunar landing missions over the past few years has been quite low. Below is the updated table of lunar landing missions since 2019.
We wish all the best to Intuitive Machines IM-2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon
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The Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission to the moon in Feb 2024 was a partial success. It landed alright, after an issue with the Laser range finder (someone failed to unlatch a safety latch before launch), but shortly after landing, the tall lander tipped over and came to rest on its side.
We can be quite sure that some changes have been made to the landing apparatus for IM-2.
Check out https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/111924176383149912 and https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/111983095115479499 for info on the IM-1 mission.
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Ride-sharing in this launch is the NASA Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft. The small 200-kg satellite's mission is to detect and map water on the lunar surface, which will help guide future crewed missions to the moon.
Lunar Trailblazer will take a separate low-energy path to the moon lasting several months, with 2 moon flybys and final lunar orbit insertion on July 7.
The mission is managed by JPL and its science investigation is led by Caltech.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/how-nasas-lunar-trailblazer-will-make-a-looping-voyage-to-the-moon/
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Another rideshare on this launch is a small spacecraft by AstroForge, the "space mining" company.
Details are skimpy but https://spacenews.com/astroforge-announces-asteroid-target-for-upcoming-mission/ is reporting that the spacecraft, called Odin, will fly by asteroid 2022 OB5 about 300 days after launch. The mission is an effort to demonstrate the company’s low-cost spacecraft technology — Gialich estimated the spacecraft cost the company $6.5 million — and to study the asteroid.
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Here is the link to the livestream for the launch of the IM-2 mission by Intuitive Machines.
Liftoff is scheduled for 7:16:30 p.m. EST. Webcast begins at 6:30 p.m. EST.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx8qzcomV5A (from NASA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpHUzCdD7Ss (from Intuitive Machines)
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Spacecraft deployment times hh:mm:ss after launch:
00:43:38 IM-2 Athena lander
00:47:28 AstroForge Odin
00:47:48 NASA Lunar Trailblazer
00:48:08 CHIMERA GEO 1
SpaceX
SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.
SpaceX (www.spacex.com)
Webcast is now live.
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Liftoff of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission to the moon and other rideshares.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx8qzcomV5A
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Here is a graph of the elevation angle of the Sun at the IM-2 landing site starting on March 6.
Note that even at lunar noon on March 12, the Sun is just 5° above the horizon due to the extreme southern location of the landing site.
IM-2 has about 10 earth-days to complete its mission before night falls and freezes all its electronics.
Calculation info: https://the-moon.us/wiki/Sun_Angle
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The NASA DSN site in Canberra is getting ready to communicate with the IM-2 and NASA Trailblazer spacecraft after they separate from the Falcon second stage, about 3 and 7 minutes from now resp.
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html
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Deployment of the IM-2 spacecraft.
The NASA Lunar Trailblazer was also deployed subsequently.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx8qzcomV5A
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We have contact!
The NASA DSN site in Canberra is receiving signals from the IM-2 and the NASA Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft at 1.256 kb/s and 16 kb/s resp.https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html
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Pic of the display at DSN Canberra showing status of the signals from the 3 antennas pointed at IM-2, LTB and LTB resp., posted by Richard Stephenson with text -
"All three Canberra antenna have now had good acquisitions. Both IM2 and Trailblazer looking great!"
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The CHIMERA GEO 1 spacecraft is also doing well. EPIC AEROSPACE @epicaerospace posted the following two displays with the text
"We got beacons and data!
The spacecraft is healthy and power positive. We are working to establish uplink and begin commanding the spacecraft to begin the mission."No word yet on AstroForge.
@cosmos4u - do you have any info on their status? TheSpaceEngineer @mcrs987 tweeted "Astroforge has been troubleshooting issues with their spacecraft for several hours now."19/n
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Tweets by BWJC @immabed indicate that as of 06:55 UTC, AstroForge has not established comms with their spacecraft.
The chat panel on the YouTube channel also indicates the same.
https://www.youtube.com/live/WV9EXw07tSsAlso, Intuitive Machines has not posted any updates.
@cosmos4u
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