Tag: Intuitive Machines

NASA switches lunar landing site for Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander

11:05 am

Peregrine landing site

NASA today announced that it has changed the planned landing site on the Moon for Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, presently scheduled for launch at the end of March on the first flight of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.

The original landing site for Astrobotic’s flight within Lacus Mortis, which is in the northeast quadrant of the lunar nearside of the Moon, was chosen by Astrobotic to suit its lander performance and safety, as well as Astrobotic’s preferences. However, as NASA’s Artemis activities mature, it became evident the agency could increase the scientific value of the NASA payloads if they were delivered to a different location. The science and technology payloads planned for this delivery to the Moon presented NASA scientists with a valuable opportunity, prompting the relocation of the landing site to a mare – an ancient hardened lava flow – outside of the Gruithuisen Domes, a geologic enigma along the mare/highlands boundary on the northeast border of Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, the largest dark spot on the Moon.

The white dot on the map to the right shows this location. The original location was to the west of Atlas Crater in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side, where Ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander plans to touch down in April.

This decision by NASA was apparently prompted by the decision to send Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander to Vallis Schröteri in Oceanus Procellarum, which is the rill that flows west out of the crater Aristarchus. Gruithuisen Domes had been a potential landing site for Nova-C, and NASA probably did not want to lose an opportunity to go there.

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Developments at the Houston Spaceport industry park

7:44 pm

Link here. The article gives a detailed review of the various space-related businesses (Axiom, Intuitive Machines, Collins Aerospace) that have set up operations at this industry park focused on attracting space companies to the Houston area.

The park in a sense in misnamed, as it isn’t a launch facility. However, it is now building a taxiway that will connect the park directly to Ellington Airport, which for these businesses will help facilitate the transport of large space station modules and lunar landers.

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Private lunar rover to fly on private lunar lander

10:24 am

Yaoki deployed from Nova-C
Yaoki deployed from Nova-C

The Japanese based robot company Dymon has now purchased payload space on Intuitive Machines second lunar lander, Nova-C, in order to fly its own lunar rover, dubbed Yaoki, to the Moon.

Yaoki is expected to be flown to the lunar south pole on board Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander in the second half of 2023. After landing, Yaoki is expected to deploy from Nova-C to demonstrate Dymon’s lunar mobility technology designed by its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shin-ichiro Nakajima.

The agreement with Dymon leverages Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Access Services and Lunar Data Services business segments to land the Yaoki rover on the Moon and control it via secure lunar communications.

The main passenger on this mission is NASA, but Inituitive Machines is free to make money by selling payload space to others. The graphic, from the press release, is intriguing, as it does not show how the rover will be deployed.

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The most valuable real estate on the Moon

10:09 am

The most valuable real estate on the Moon
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced and annotated to post here, is an oblique view of the terrain near Shackelton Crater and the Moon’s south pole, taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and released today.

Shackleton-de Gerlache ridge, about 9 miles long, is considered one of the prime landing sites for both a manned Artemis mission as well as the unmanned Nova-C lander from the commercial company Intuitive Machines. To facilitate planning, scientists have created a very detailed geomorphic map [pdf] of this region. As explained at the first link above,

Going back to time-proven traditions of the Apollo missions, geomorphic maps at a very large scale are needed to effectively guide and inform landing site selection, traverse planning, and in-situ landscape interpretation by rovers and astronauts. We assembled a geomorphic map covering a candidate landing site on the Shackleton-de Gerlache-ridge and the adjacent rim of Shackleton crater. The map was derived from one meter per pixel NAC image mosaics and five meters per pixel digital elevation models (DEM) from Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) ranging measurements.

Such geology maps guide planning and exploration, but actual images tell us what the first explorers will see. Below is a close-up overhead view of small area at the intersection of the ridge and the rim of Shackleton.
» Read more

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You can now buy payload space on a lunar rover!

11:18 am

Capitalism in space: Lunar Outpost, which is building a mini-rover that will fly on the private Intuitive Machines lunar lander scheduled for launch later this year, has now partnered with the company Copernic to sell the rover’s spare payload space to whoever wants to buy it.

Lunar Outpost of Evergreen, Colorado, is preparing to send a 10-kilogram robotic rover to the moon on an Intuitive Machines lander and SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket later this year. While the lander’s primary payload is a Nokia LTE 4G technology demonstration, Lunar Outpost is working with Copernic Space to sell an additional 3.475 kilograms on its first Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP).

…Copernic Space created the online platform to streamline the process of buying and selling space-related products and services like shares in a space startup, satellite sensor tasking or payload space. By applying blockchain technology, Copernic Space converts space assets into non-fungible or digital tokens, which are designed to be bought and sold online.

For the next 11 days, Lunar Outpost is selling a gram of payload capacity on its MAPP Lunar Rover for $4,250. The minimum order is 100 grams. In April, the public sale begins, allowing people to buy or sell as little as one-hundredth of a gram of payload space.

It appears purchase will be by using blockchain currency, and appears to also involve the purchase of “non-fungible or digital tokens”.

Normally I would applaud this effort, but the addition of these digital tokens makes the sale process seem less than straightforward and even a little suspicious. What exactly are customers buying? And what exactly will go to the Moon? Copernic’s website describes this process, but even there its seems exceedingly vague and uncomfortably like a con game.

From what I can gather, customers who buy payload space can use Copernic to create these non-fungible tokens which can then be resold to others to make back some of the cost. I wonder, however, why would anyone buy these tokens in the first place. As far as I can tell, they have absolutely no value in the real world.

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NASA awards Intuitive Machines another contract to deliver science instruments to Moon

8:37 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday awarded Intuitive Machines its third contract to use its Nova-C lander to deliver four science instruments in 2024 to an unusual geological feature on the Moon.

The investigations aboard Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander are destined for Reiner Gamma, one of the most distinctive and enigmatic natural features on the Moon. Known as a lunar swirl, Reiner Gamma is on the western edge of the Moon, as seen from Earth, and is one of the most visible lunar swirls. Scientists continue to learn what lunar swirls are, how they form, and their relationship to the Moon’s magnetic field.

…Intuitive Machines will receive $77.5 million for the contract and is responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, delivery from Earth to the surface of the Moon, and payload operations. This is Intuitive Machines’ third task order award, the first of which is a delivery to Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon during the first quarter of 2022. This award is the seventh surface delivery task award issued to a CLPS partner.

Below is the present schedule for these commercial unmanned lunar landers:

  • 2022: Astrobotic to deliver 11 instruments to the crater Lacus Mortis.
  • 2022: Intuitive Machines to deliver 6 payloads to Oceanus Procellarum.
  • 2022: Intuitive Machines to deliver a drill and two instruments to the lunar south pole.
  • 2023: Firefly to deliver 10 instruments to Mare Crisium.
  • 2023: Masten to deliver nine instruments to the lunar south pole region.
  • 2023: Astrobotic to deliver VIPER rover to lunar south pole region.
  • 2024: Intuitive Machines to deliver 4 payloads to Reiner Gamma.

No one should be surprised if some of these landers fail. The goal of this program is to jumpstart a commercial industry of private lunar landers, which is why NASA is awarding so many contracts. Some will fail. Some will succeed. In the end both NASA and the general public will have several competing options for landing payloads on the Moon.

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Landing site chosen for Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander

11:57 pm

NASA scientists have now chosen the landing site for the privately built Nova-C lunar lander, built and designed by Intuitive Machines, that late next year will carry three science instruments to a ridge close to Shackleton Crater near the Moon’s south pole.

NASA data from spacecraft orbiting the Moon indicate this location, referred to as the “Shackleton connecting ridge,” could have ice below the surface. The area receives sufficient sunlight to power a lander for roughly a 10-day mission, while also providing a clear line of sight to Earth for constant communications. It also is close to a small crater, which is ideal for a robotic excursion.

These conditions offer the best chance of success for the three technology demonstrations aboard. This includes the NASA-funded Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – which consists of a drill paired with a mass spectrometer – a 4G/LTE communications network developed by Nokia of America Corporation, and Micro-Nova, a deployable hopper robot developed by Intuitive Machines.

One of the goals of the mission is to drill down three feet to see if ice can be detected. Another is to simply test this engineering to better refine it for the many other unmanned lunar missions that will follow in the next few years.

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Utilizing a commercial lunar probe to reach geosynchronous orbit around the Earth

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: The commercial startup SpaceFlight Inc has purchased payload space on Intuitive Machines’ second lunar landing mission to the Moon late in ’22 in order to test its Sherpa Escape space tug’s ability to use that flight path to place a satellite into geosynchronous orbit around the Earth.

The tug will also carry the payload of another company, GeoJump, which will test in-space fueling technology developed by another company, Orbit Fab.

Sounds complicated, eh? It isn’t when you think about it. When NASA gave up ownership and design of its lunar landers and instead began buying such products from the private sector, it freed up that private sector to sell its spare payload capacity to anyone who wanted it. On this particular flight Intuitive Machines sold that spare capacity to SpaceFlight, which in turn provided GeoJump and Orbit Fab the space tug for getting their experimental payloads to geosynchronous orbit.

This is a win-win for everyone. Not only are two companies (Intuitive Machines and Spaceflight) making money by selling their capabilities to others, two other companies (GeoJump and Orbit Fab) are now able to test their own space innovations at a much lower cost, and much more quickly than had they depended on a government launch from NASA.

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Intuitive Machines awards SpaceX another lunar lander launch contract

9:36 am

Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander
Artist’s impression of Intuitive Machines lunar lander,
on the Moon

Capitalism in space: Intuitive Machines announced yesterday that it has awarded SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket the launch contract for its third unmanned lunar lander, making SpaceX its carrier for all three.

The key quote however from the article is this:

Intuitive Machines’ first two lander missions are carrying out task orders for NASA awarded under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. However, IM-3 is not linked to any CLPS missions. Marshall said that the mission “has an open manifest for commercial and civil customers.”

In other words, this third launch is being planned as an entirely private lunar robotic mission. Intuitive Machines is essentially announcing that it will launch the lander and has room for purchase for anyone who wants to send a payload to the Moon. This opportunity is perfect for the many universities that have programs teaching students how to build science payloads and satellites. For relatively little, a school can offer its students the chance to fly something to the lunar surface. Not only will it teach them how to build cutting edge engineering, it will allow those students to do cutting edge exploration.

This is the whole concept behind the recommendations I put forth in my 2016 policy paper, Capitalism in Space. If the government will simply buy what it needs from the private sector, and let that sector build and own what it builds, that sector will construct things so that their products can be sold to others, and thus expand the market.

Since around 2018 NASA and the federal government has apparently embraced those recommendations, and we are about to see that policy bear fruit in unmanned lunar exploration. Below is a list of all planned robotic lander missions to the Moon, all scheduled for the next four years:
» Read more

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NASA funds hopper to jump into shadowed lunar craters and find ice

10:16 am

Capitalism in space: NASA has awarded a $41.6 million contract to Arizona State University and the private company Intuitive Machines to build a tiny hopper that will be used to explore the permanently shadowed craters near the Moon’s south pole, looking for water ice.

Micro-Nova can carry a 1-kilogram payload more than 2.5 kilometers to access lunar craters and enable high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface under the flight path. Intuitive Machines’ Micro-Nova, a lunar hopper that will explore permanently shaded regions of the moon.

…“Intuitive Machines’ Micro-Nova is our first-ever chance to explore from within a lunar permanently shaded region (PSR),” said the mission science lead Mark Robinson, of ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. “We will be able to take very high resolution color images near the hopper and black and white images of about half the PSR. What will we see, that is the question!”

This tiny hopper, only 30 inches square, will be built by ASU and launched on Intuitive Machines’ first Moon lander, Nova-C, presently scheduled for launch in December 2022.

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Launch of Intuitive Machine’s first lunar lander delayed

9:15 am

Capitalism in space: The first mission of Intuitive Machine’s lunar lander has now been delayed from late this year to early next year.

Intuitive Machines spokesman Josh Marshall said April 26 that the slip was caused by its launch provider. “SpaceX informed Intuitive Machines that due to unique mission requirements the earliest available flight opportunity is in the first quarter of 2022,” he told SpaceNews.

Marshall referred questions about the “unique mission requirements” that caused the delay to SpaceX. That company did not respond to questions from SpaceNews on the topic.

Though it is entirely possible that SpaceX needed to delay the launch, we should be skeptical of this reason. More likely Intuitive has had issues that caused a delay, and is using SpaceX as a cover.

There is a race to become the first privately-built commercial lunar lander. Astrobotics Peregrine lander is still scheduled to launch by the end of the year. We shall see.

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Intuitive Machines reveals details of lunar landing mission

9:28 am

Capitalism in space: Intuitive Machines (IM), one of a handful of private companies that NASA has awarded contracts to build lunar landers of the agency’s science instruments, yesterday revealed the landing site and launch date of its first mission to the Moon.

IM will launch the Nova-C lander in October 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The target landing site is Vallis Schröteri (Schröter’s Valley) in the Moon’s Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). The company said the site is “flat, free of craters and rocks, and has abundant sunlight” throughout the 14-day mission.

Five NASA payloads and others from commercial customers will be aboard, but IM did not specify what they are. Nova-C can take 100 kilograms to the lunar surface and provide 200 watts of power. Nova-C is based on NASA’s Project M lunar lander and Project Morpheus, which were designed, developed and tested by Johnson Space Center to demonstrate planetary landing technologies. The core team that developed Morpheus left government and founded IM.

Because the lander belongs to Intuitive Machines, not NASA, they have the right to sell their spare payload space to others, increasing their profits above what NASA will pay them. This shifts control of the mission from NASA to the private company, and in the long run will encourage the development of a private unmanned lunar landing industry.

Nor is IM alone in this. NASA has purchased landers from Astrobotics and Masten, with Astrobotics aiming for a 2021 landing and Masten in 2022. Both also have spare payload space, and are offering this to others.

I expect at a minimum some universities will make a deal. Rather than have their students build an orbiting cubesat for training and education, now they can have them build a science instrument that will land on the Moon.

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SpaceX wins launch contract for NASA privately-built lunar lander

10:00 am

Intuitive Machines, one of the three companies awarded NASA contracts to build unmanned lunar landers, has awarded SpaceX the launch contract for its planned 2021 mission.

The Houston-based company’s first robotic Nova-C lander will carry up to 220 pounds, or 100 kilograms, of payloads to the moon’s surface. Launch and landing are scheduled for July 2021, according to Trent Martin, vice president of aerospace systems at Intuitive Machines.

Intuitive Machines previously stated plans to launch the first Nova-C mission on a SpaceX rocket, but Martin said in an interview Wednesday that the company held a “fully open competition” among multiple launch service providers before signing a contract for a Falcon 9 launch.

In a statement, Intuitive Machines said it “ultimately selected SpaceX for its proven record of reliability and outstanding value.” The company said the Nova-C mission will take off from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. [emphasis mine]

That “outstanding value” almost certainly was the lowest price by far offered by any rocket company, a reality that continues to bring SpaceX business while taking market share from everyone else.

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