The private lander Nova-C launched towards the Moon

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off early Thursday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a moon lander designed by Intuitive Machines, a private company founded in 2013 based in Houston, Florida. Texas.

The Nova-C lander took off early this morning from Florida, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon-9 launcher. Main sponsor of the mission, NASA hopes for a successful moon landing next week in order to revive the lunar economy before the astronaut missions of the Artemis program, scheduled for 2026 at the earliest.

The lander successfully separated from the upper stage and drifted into the void, with Earth far below. If all goes well, a lunar landing attempt will take place on February 22, after a day in lunar orbit.

Only five countries – the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan – have successfully landed on the moon and no private company has yet done so. The United States has not returned to the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program more than fifty years ago.

“There were a lot of sleepless nights preparing for this flight” said Steve Altemus, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Machines, before the flight.

Lunar South Pole

The company aims to land its six-legged lander more than 4 meters high 300 kilometers from the Moon’s south pole, which is the equivalent of landing in Antarctica on Earth. It is in this region, full of craters and dangerous cliffs, but potentially rich in frozen water, that NASA plans to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. The space agency said the six navigation and technology experiments aboard the lander can help make things easier.

Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lander, the first element of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery service, failed shortly after takeoff in early January. Due to a fuel tank rupture and massive leak, the spacecraft circled the moon and re-entered the atmosphere 10 days after launch, breaking up and burning up over the Pacific. Other machines made by private companies, an Israeli one in 2019, and another Japanese one in 2023, have also experienced failures.

Intuitive Machines nicknamed its moon lander after Homer’s hero in “The Odyssey.” NASA pays $118 million to Intuitive Machines – to get its scientific instruments to the Moon. The company has also found its own customers, including Columbia Sportswear, which is testing a metal jacket as a thermal insulator on the lunar lander, and sculptor Jeff Koons, who is sending 125-inch lunar figurines into a transparent cube.

The lander also carries Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Eaglecam, which will take photos of the lander as they descend. The spacecraft is scheduled to cease operations after a week on the surface.