The privately owned Odyssey lander successfully separated from a SpaceX rocket and flew toward a historic mission.
No private spacecraft has been able to successfully land on the lunar surface, but the Odyssey lander, created by the American company Intuitive Machines, can. This mission is also historic because the United States has not landed an unmanned vehicle or manned spacecraft since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, Space writes.
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The Odyssey lander (the first such device is called Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C, because there will be others) successfully entered orbit on February 15 aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
The module then successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage and began its independent journey to the Moon, where it is scheduled to make a soft landing on February 22. Odyssey will first enter orbit around the Moon, then attempt to land at the bottom of a small crater about 300 kilometers from the satellite’s South Pole.
According to Intuitive Machines’ message, which appeared 8 hours after the launch, the landing module takes the desired position in space, receives energy from the sun’s rays, sends radio signals to the Earth and flies towards its target along the pre-selected trajectory.
If all goes as planned, the Odyssey lander will not only be the first privately owned vehicle to successfully land on the Moon, but it will also be the first American robotic vehicle sent to an Earth satellite in 52 years.
The lander carries 12 payloads, half of which belong to NASA. The latest devices are designed to test various technologies and study the lunar surface. In particular, a new technology for precision navigation and landing on the surface of an Earth satellite will be tested, and special cameras will collect data on how the module’s engine emissions affect the lunar surface and may alter the local regolith. The data collected will help NASA scientists better prepare for the landing of astronauts on the Moon within 2 years at the South Pole under the Artemis program.
The Odyssey lander became the second private robotic vehicle to fly to the Moon. In January, the Peregrine module, created by a US company called Astrobotic, tried to do this. But 11 days after its successful launch from Earth, the module returned due to an accident on board and burned up in the atmosphere of our planet, as I wrote earlier. Focus.
Moreover Focus He wrote that the SLIM landing module, currently on the Moon and no longer operational, managed to collect a lot of scientific data during its short mission. Scientists believe that they will help find the answer to the question of the origin of the Earth satellite.
Source: Focus
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