US achieves first moon landing in half century with private spacecraft

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-nears-attempt-first-moon-landing-half-century-with-private-robot-spacecraft-2024-02-22/

by JumpCrisscross • 2 years ago

217 54 2 years ago

reuters.com

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

To put this in perspective, here is a list of lunar missions ever attempted [1]. Intuitive Machines is tied with JAXA, the ESA and ISRO in terms of successful landings [2], eclipsed only by the U.S., China and former Soviet Union (though not current Russia [3]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_probes

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_25

TomK32• 2 years ago

Fun facts: Kazakhstan was the last to leave the Soviet Union and Baikonur is still rented to Russia until 2050. Let's hope renting it doesn't go sour like it did with the naval facilities in Ukraine's Crimea...

boomboomsubban• 2 years ago

Havoc• 2 years ago

I hadn't realised private is that close never mind done. I knew there was a race but thought another couple years at least

clipsy2• 2 years ago

It's "private" unless you ask where the funding came from.

pests• 2 years ago

Like SpaceX?

dotnet003• 2 years ago

The source of the funding is not important when it comes to the 'private' distinction.

The point of 'private' is that the company owns the technology and can sell it to whoever else is willing to pay. We've seen this with Dragon for instance, started as NASA funded, has since done completely privately funded free-floating spaceflight, several privately funded spaceflights to the ISS carrying astronauts from other countries (eg skipping the bureaucracy and other bs the country would have to go through to fly through an official seat via ESA), and has led to SpaceX privately working on EVA capability and proposing a Hubble orbit raising mission.

Additionally, being a private product, NASA paid them a fixed sum of money and that's mostly it. They don't care how the company allocates the money, they don't babysit the design. They've 'bought' a lunar landing attempt. So, for example, if IM ran over-budget, they spent their own money on it.

This is different from projects which are closer to public-private partnerships, like SLS. Where the company builds the rocket and is promised as much money as it costs, and in exchange NASA controls everything about the design, as well as owning the rocket once ready to launch and doing all the flight ops etc themselves.

josephstalinOk• 2 years ago

That landing is as much a "US landing" as the profits of a private company, LOL. You live under capitalism, the only thing that gets socialized are the losses of big banks, everything else is priavte.

syntheticcdo• 2 years ago

Fun fact: the 2008 bailouts actually produced a net profit for the US Treasury.

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-b...

noduerme2• 2 years ago

Sure, Joe, and the Soviet landings belonged as much to the proletariat as the cabbages from their communal farms: Not at all.

taejavu• 2 years ago

Is Musk still planning to do his art-project lunar flyby with Starship? Haven't heard anything about that for... is it years now?

pohl• 2 years ago

I think it’s been on the back burner since he got his new hobby of complaining about generative AI being too woke.

tjpnz• 2 years ago

You mean Yusaku Maezawa's art project where applicants were literally chosen based on the number of Twitter followers they had? It's still on but will likely be closer to 2033 now than the planned 2023.

dotnet003• 2 years ago

They're still working on getting Starship to orbit, reentry and demonstrating cryogenic fuel transfer in space (there seems to be a decent chance of the first happening next month which would also allow for an attempt at the second, and maybe being able to demonstrate the third within the same ship too). Still a few steps to go before they can put a crew on-board and fly it out past the Moon. They've got to demonstrate reentry, the catching mechanism, orbital docking and refueling and life support.

For the catching mechanism they're going to want a second tower, for which the parts are only just starting to arrive at Starbase, so it'll probably be at least 6 months until that's assembled, and closer to 12 until it's through simpler testing and ready to take on a real catch. So probably a good 4-5 years until they're ready to put any humans onboard, and then another year or two after that to put complete amateurs onboard.

idlewords2• 2 years ago

Their contract with NASA also requires them to demonstrate an unmanned moon landing, and I suspect that would come before dear moon unless they really want to piss the agency off.

stevage2• 2 years ago

Dear Moon. It's not his project. But yes.

noduerme2• 2 years ago

Does anyone know why it wouldn't be equipped to record and stream video?

stevage2• 2 years ago

Wild speculation but perhaps it can't transmit straight back to earth, but relies on a satellite which is only occasionally in the right position.

adolph• 2 years ago

Goonhilly plays a crucial role in Intuitive Machines' "Lunar Tracking, Telemetry & Command Network", consisting of nine large antennas strategically positioned across seven global locations. These antennas facilitate the seamless exchange of information with the spacecraft as it becomes visible and are essential to the overall success of the mission.

https://www.satelliteevolution.com/post/goonhilly-s-key-role...

Intuitive Machines has also been contracted for additional Lunar communications.

https://www.intuitivemachines.com/lunar-data-services

Addendum:

I saw DSN [0] antenna DSS 54 reporting contact with "Lunar Node 1," which is a payload on IM-1. That doesn't necessarily mean that the rest of IM-1's data is going that route.

0. https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

1. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/marshall/nasa-to...

photochemsyn• 2 years ago

It has this EagleCam device which is supposed to have been ejected from the craft when it was 30m off the surface to capture images of the landing, see Wiki:

"The EagleCam will use a Wi-Fi connection to the Odysseus lander to relay its images back to Earth."

It seems a bit iffy to change the mass of the craft like that while landing. The weak signal might be due to the craft having fallen over on its side, but time will tell.

bombcar2• 2 years ago

Is it literally using WiFi as in wireless Ethernet via the standard bands?

meindnoch• 2 years ago

The EagleCam will use a Wi-Fi connection to the Odysseus lander to relay its images back to Earth

Ok, I consider those images lost.

gobins• 2 years ago

Looks like, the race is on , to start harvesting minerals from the moon.There are still big challenges like sourcing water and setting up base camps to start with but if we can deploy mining machines, this could be a gamechanger.

VikingCoder• 2 years ago

As the saying goes, it doesn't matter how much it costs to make the first von Neumann probe.

whatisthiseven• 2 years ago

The less known half of that saying just never really got the viral spread as that first one.

"And that's why they're everywhere"!

idlewords2• 2 years ago

We have minerals at home.

coolspot2• 2 years ago

Minerals at home:

...

dorkwood• 2 years ago

It's harder to get VCs to invest in minerals at home.

kibwen3• 2 years ago

Clarification to the title: the spacecraft was developed by a private company, but it was publicly funded by way of NASA, as part of their Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program: https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/

samatman2• 2 years ago

This doesn't clarify the title at all. USG pays big bucks to Amazon and Oracle for servers, they're still private companies.

kibwen3• 2 years ago

The difference being that Amazon and Oracle have customers other than the government. This company is essentially a government-funded startup.

Retric2• 2 years ago

USG paid for R&D, physical hardware, and the actual launch.

It’s about as ‘private’ as the F-22.

bruce511• 2 years ago

Um, not to split hairs, but how is that different to Grumman building the Apollo moon lander?

nyokodo• 2 years ago

how is that different to Grumman building the Apollo moon lander?

NASA wholly owned and operated the lunar lander after it was built. Intuitive Machines owns and is operating the machines it built for NASA and can use the technology for other customers.

amethyst• 2 years ago

Grumman wasn’t operating their own Mission Control — NASA did. But NASA isn’t operating this mission, similar to how they don’t operate SpaceX missions even if they are funding them.

esics6A• 2 years ago

Wait does this mean that private corporations from the United States will compete against national governments in space? If so it’s history repeating itself and the private corporations will probably win again. Great news and proof that it’s working bravo!

BlueTemplar• 2 years ago

Still somewhat different from Apollo since NASA had a bigger role then ?

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/building-apollo

Though notably here, the CEO is a former NASA cadre.

sathackr• 2 years ago

They may not have landed where they initially intended to

https://twitter.com/coastal8049/status/1760865713948885120?s...

doodlebugging• 2 years ago

I see that one of the instruments on board is supposed to measure space weather interactions with the moon. They landed just in time to catch data from an X6.7 flare that popped this afternoon and should arrive there before the lander goes dark.

US achieves first moon landing in half century with private spacecraft

Related Stories