2024 lunar landing mission
IM-1 was a robotic Moon landing mission conducted by Intuitive Machines (IM) in February 2024 using a Nova-C lunar lander. After contact with the lunar surface on February 22 the lander tipped to an unplanned 30 degree angle. All instrument payloads remained functional and the mission was deemed a success. IM-1 was the first commercial mission to successfully soft-land on the Moon. NASA provided funding support for the mission through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The lander, named "Odysseus", carried six NASA-developed payloads and several others from commercial and educational customers. On February 29, "Odysseus" lost power and shut down with the start of the lunar night.
IM-1 was the first soft lunar landing by a private company and "Odysseus" was the first American-made spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Steve Altemus, CEO of IM, says Nova-C is the first spacecraft to use liquid methane and liquid oxygen (methalox) propulsion beyond low-Earth orbit, and also the first methalox spacecraft to land on an off-world celestial body.
Background and selection.
In December 2017, Space Policy Directive 1 signaled an intention to return astronauts to the Moon. Excerpts from NASA documents obtained by "The New York Times" suggested the agency would prioritize the private spaceflight sector. In November 2018, NASA announced the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, selecting nine companies to deploy payloads for the agency. In May 2019, NASA announced that Astrobotic Technology, Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond would develop lunar landers, awarding Intuitive Machines US$ million. Intuitive Machines was paid US$ million to develop the "Odysseus" lunar lander used in the IM-1 mission.
The IM-1 mission in February 2024 followed the "Peregrine" mission by Astrobotic Technology, which launched in January 2024. The "Peregrine" landing at Gruithuisen Domes was abandoned when a propellant leak was observed after launch, and the spacecraft was guided to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.
Mission hardware.
"Odysseus" was equipped with six instruments developed by NASA, including a laser retroreflector array, a lidar navigation device, a stereo camera, a low-frequency radio receiver, the Lunar Node-1 beacon, and an instrument to monitor propellant levels. Additionally, a camera built by students at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, a planned Moon telescope, and a Jeff Koons art project were also on board. In total the payloads comprise six NASA scientific instruments and six commercial instruments (five of the latter being scientific and one cultural).
"Odysseus" landed at the Malapert-A crater and stayed active there for about a week, before the Sun sets at the landing site. The "Odysseus" lander is not designed to survive the lunar night, which lasts about two weeks.
The lander has a chip with works of 200 artists, including works of Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Jeff Koons and Bram Reijnders. The lander carries the sculpture "Moon Phases" by Jeff Koons within its payload. This is the first sculpture installation to reach the Moon since Paul Van Hoeydonck's "Fallen Astronaut" sculpture was placed on the Moon by David Scott of Apollo 15 in 1971. Koons describes "Moon Phases" as, "125 miniature Moon sculptures, each approximately one inch in diameter."
The lander also carries private disclosed and undisclosed payloads from commercial company's, educational institutions, and private citizens. One being the Lunaprise time capsule, which includes the Lunar Library compiled by the Arch Mission Foundation. The Lunar Library includes content from the English Wikipedia and the Rosetta Project. Also included onboard is the AstroVault by Quantum Aerospace which includes an archive of musical recordings and photos, which features songs by Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, and Elvis Presley, among other musicians.
A Radio Frequency Mass Gauge (RFMG) on board estimated how much propellant was available during the IM-1 mission. This was the first long-duration test of an RFMG on a standalone spacecraft.
Mission events.
Prior to launch.
In December 2023, "Odysseus" arrived at Kennedy Space Center for processing. On January 31, 2024, the "Odysseus" spacecraft was encapsulated in the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 Block 5 launch vehicle. On February 13, IM announced that two wet dress rehearsals loading "Odysseus" with propellants had been successful and they were ready for launch.
Launch.
A Falcon 9 booster launched "Odysseus" from LC-39A in Florida at 06:05 UTC on February 15, 2024. The booster returned to LZ-1 and the expended Falcon 9 upper stage delivered the spacecraft to its translunar trajectory.
Originally planned to launch on February 13, SpaceX postponed the launch after reporting a technical issue with propellant loaded onto the lander.
Early operations.
After separation from the launch vehicle, the Nova Control operations center established communication with the lander and conducted initial checkouts. Images captured by the spacecraft after separation from the launch vehicle were released on February 17.
Commissioning burn.
The lander was scheduled to perform a main engine "commissioning burn" on February 15. Trent Martin, Intuitive Machines vice president of Space Systems, described this as a "critical step" for the mission. After reporting issues with the IM-1 star tracker and adjustment of the liquid oxygen line cooling time IM reported a successful commissioning burn on February 16. The maneuver resulted in a change in the lander's velocity.
Trajectory correction.
Intuitive Machines planned for up to three trajectory adjustment maneuvers during the trans-lunar phase of the mission. The first was completed on February 18, and after the second maneuver on February 20, there was no need for a third.
On February 20, Intuitive Machines reported that "Odysseus" had completed approximately 72% of its journey to the Moon's surface.
Lunar orbit.
"Odysseus" performed its lunar orbit insertion (LOI) on February 21, altering its velocity by . Intuitive Machines reported the 408-second main engine LOI burn placed the lander in a lunar orbit. On February 22 IM indicated a "lunar correction maneuver" had raised the orbit.
The lander spent approximately 24 hours orbiting the Moon before its descent to the lunar surface on February 22. On February 21, while still in orbit, "Odysseus" sent back high-resolution images of the lunar surface.
Intuitive Machines adjusted the descent burn parameters based on data from the lunar orbit insertion burn. IM indicated the risks undertaken during the lunar landing phase of the mission would be a "challenge". A later report indicated that, as the lander was being prepared for its descent to the surface, mission controllers determined a safety switch on the primary laser rangefinder system had not been activated during pre-launch preparations. Teams on the ground worked around the issue by reprogramming "Odysseus" to use data from an experimental NASA payload, the "Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing".
Lunar landing.
A favored landing site in 2020 was between the Sea of Serenity (Mare Serenitatis) and the Sea of Crises (Mare Crisium). Lunar maria are large plains formed when lava flowed into ancient impact basins. Later, a lunar highlands location near the south pole of the Moon was chosen for the landing, since that region is believed to have a source of water for a future lunar base.
The Malapert-A crater area from the lunar south pole was chosen because it appeared to be a relatively flat and safe place near the pole to land, amongst other considerations.
After making a last-minute software patch to the lander's altitude monitoring systems, "Odysseus" began its landing sequence at 23:11 UTC (6:11 p.m. EST) on February 22 and landed near Malapert A—an area determined to contain water ice—at 23:23 UTC (6:23 p.m. EST). Controllers confirmed that faint communications were received from the lander. The lander was initially thought to be in a fully vertical orientation, based on stale telemetry. It was later determined to have landed at a 30 degree angle, with its solar panels and scientific instrumentation functionally oriented, but with its radio transmission rates somewhat reduced due to the unexpected angle of the lander's antennas.
The lander appeared to most probably have lost one or more of its 6 landing struts and to be resting on an externally mounted helium tank. (The only non-functional payload is a passive "Moon Phases" art sculpture, on the side facing towards the ground.) "Odysseus" became the first American spacecraft Moon landing since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the first commercial lunar lander. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite made an intentional hard landing in 2009 following deorbit.
Reporting by Kenneth Chang in "The New York Times" includes a detailed description of the landing anomaly:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;Tim Crain, the company’s chief technology officer, said the spacecraft had been designed to stay upright when landing even on a slope of 10 degrees or more. The navigation software was programmed to look for a spot where the slope was five degrees or less. Because the laser instruments on Odysseus for measuring altitude were not working during descent, the spacecraft landed faster than planned on a 12-degree slope. That exceeded its design limits. Odysseus skidded along the surface, broke one of its six legs and tipped to its side.
Surface operations.
On February 23, Intuitive Machines reported that the IM-1 "Odysseus" lander was still "alive and well", and that IM was continuing to receive data on the vehicle's status and whether the scientific payloads could still be deployed. Intuitive Machines executives said they were working to reconfigure antennas to increase downlink rates but did not estimate what sort of data rates they expected.
On February 26, Intuitive Machines released the first images from the surface taken by the lunar probe. Based on Earth and moon positioning, the IM team reported that flight controllers would continue to communicate with "Odysseus" until Tuesday (February 27) morning. As of February 28, "Odysseus" was still receiving power, and all six NASA payloads were providing good data. In a press conference the same day, Intuitive Machines said the lander was in its final hours of operation as the sun moved out of view of the one illuminated solar panel. On February 29, "Odysseus" lost power and shut down with the start of the lunar night. However, the company did not rule out bringing "Odysseus" back to life after the two-week lunar night. Executives said they would try contacting the lander in two to three weeks.
About one month after "Odysseus" landed on the Moon, Intuitive Machines reported that they could not re-establish contact with the lander after the lunar night, bringing an end to the IM-1 mission.
EagleCam.
The EagleCam was a deployable CubeSat camera system designed especially to photograph the lunar landing of the Nova-C "Odysseus" lander on the Moon. Photographs taken during the lunar landing of the "Odysseus" lander may also have enabled a better understanding of the dynamics of lunar landings on the lunar regolith and rock surfaces in the vicinity of the Moon's south pole. Such a better understanding of the local lunar surface features would have assisted with preparations for upcoming scheduled additional landings at the lunar south pole. Designed and manufactured by staff and students working in the Space Technologies Laboratory at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, it was intended to deploy from "Odysseus" and take the first photographs of a spacecraft landing on the moon from a third-person perspective. It also planned to test an electrodynamic dust shield system in space for the first time and utilize a Wi-Fi connection to transmit data for the first time on the lunar surface.
Design and objectives.
EagleCam's primary payload was its camera system, consisting of three fisheye-lens cameras which would take a total of nine images per second over six seconds as it was ejected from "Odysseus" shortly before landing. A fourth camera was included to test another one of EagleCam's payloads, an electrodynamic dust shield (EDS), created by the Swamp Works facility at Kennedy Space Center. The CubeSat was powered from a solar-powered battery with a lifetime of 30 minutes.
Had EagleCam been successful, photographs and data taken during the lunar landing of the "Odysseus" lander may have enabled a better understanding of the dynamics of lunar landings on the lunar regolith and rock surfaces in the vicinity of the Moon's south pole. EagleCam would've assisted in the objectives of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, such as gaining a better understanding of the local lunar surface features to assist with preparations for future manned and unmanned missions to the Moon's south pole, through NASA's Artemis program. However, while photos of "Odysseus" were never taken by EagleCam, it still recorded and transmitted other types of data to Intuitive Machines and the Space Technologies Lab via the IM-1 lander. Through EagleCam, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University became the world's first university