Machines with intuitive knowledge made history as the first private company to put a robot on the Moon last year, although the victory was tied by the lander in its favor.
Now, Houston -based firm is ready for each other attempt, a perfect touchdown has been determined.
According to an official Spaceflight Advisor, the intuitive machine is’ hexagonal -shaped lander, Athana, a spacex Falcon 9 rocket during a window, which opens at 7:02 pm on Wednesday (0002 GMT) during a window. .
If all go well, it will touch a place called Mons Monton Plateau around 6 March, which is a site close to the lunar south pole compared to any first target.
Ethana borres scientific devices, including a drill to discover ice under the surface and a famous computer scientist, a unique hopping drone called Grace after Grace Hopper. It is designed to cross the rugged inclination of the moon, boulders and craters – a valuable ability to support future crew missions.
In addition, there is a small rover, which will test a lunar cellular network provided by Nokia Bell Labs by relaying commands, images and videos between landers, rover and hopper.
Until some time ago, the soft lunar landing was achieved by only a handful of well -funded national space agencies.
Now, the US Commercial lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is working to regularize private missions through the program, a public-private cooperation that aims to deliver the key NASA hardware to the surface at a fraction of the cost of traditional missions. This effort supports the broad Artemis program, which aims to refund astronauts on the moon and implement the lessons designed to reach Mars.
“This is a really refined mission capable of partnership between the government and the American industry,” NASA’s deputy associate administrator, Joel Kirns said for investigation.
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However, the first major obstacle would be receiving a perfect landing – an achievement company decreased with its first lander, Odisius, which went into space in February 2024. It caught a leg on the surface and came up, was coming, resting at an angle of 30 degrees-limiting its solar energy and preventing it from completing NASA uses under a contract of $ 118 million.
This time, the price tag is $ 62.5 million.
“It is very challenging to land on the moon,” Kirns said. “It is much harder than landing on Earth, where we have the advantage of wind, wings, parachutes and such things.”
But on the moon, which has an environment, so thin it is practically a vacuum, the spacecraft should fully rely on the rupture controlled by the thrusters to slow down its offspring.
Trent Martin, the CEO of intuitive machines, accepted the challenges and said that the company has made significant improvements – which involves better cabling for a laser ultimeter, a tool that provides height and velocity reading and selecting a safe landing site helps to.
Another issue faced the IM-1 mission, which was accurately determining the path of its position for the moon. To improve this, spontaneous machines have increased the coordination with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) for more accurate navigation.
The arrival of Ethena on the moon is to be made on 2 March by another private American lander, the Blue Ghost of the Jugnu Aerospace, which was launched on a more circuit trip in January, which shares a ride with the Rejyliens Lander of the Space in Tokyo Is.
In addition, stopping a rocket on this rocket will be NASA’s lunar trailblazer check, which will enter the classroom after a four -month visit and start a two -year mission to study the distribution of various forms of water on the moon.
These missions come at a delicate time to NASA, amidst speculation that it can return or cancel its astronaut program in favor of Mars – a major target of both President Donald Trump and his close advisor Elon Musk.
(This story is not edited by NDTV employees and auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
