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Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander captures an image high over Australia as it heads toward the moon. There’s much debate as to whether the dot to the left of Earth is the second-stage booster (which is seen more clearly in the first of the four images) or the moon, or something else. Intuitive Machines
Soon after SpaceX successfully launched Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander toward the moon last Thursday, the spacecraft snapped some extraordinary images of Earth.
Texas-based Intuitive Machines shared four of the images on social media on Sunday. The first picture in the sequence even shows the second stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket falling away shortly after separating from the spacecraft.
Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX's second stage on Intuitive Machines’ first journey to the Moon under @NASA's CLPS initiative. pic.twitter.com/9LccL6q5tF
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 17, 2024
Intuitive Machines said its team programmed the lander’s wide and narrow field-of-view cameras “to take five quick images every five minutes for two hours, starting 100 seconds after separating from SpaceX’s second stage,” adding that “out of all the images collected, Intuitive Machines chose to show humanity’s place in the universe with four wonderful images we hope [will] inspire the next generation of risk-takers.”
In a mission update, Intuitive Machines said that Odysseus “continues to be in excellent health” as mission IM-1 makes its way toward the moon for a touchdown scheduled to take place on Thursday. “Flight controllers are preparing planned trajectory correction maneuvers to prepare the lander for lunar orbit insertion,” the company added in its message.
If Intuitive Machines manages to perform a successful soft landing with Odysseus, it will become the first private company to achieve the feat. It will also mark the first soft lunar landing by a U.S. spacecraft since the final Apollo mission in 1972.
Odysseus is carrying a total of 12 payloads, six of them for NASA. The payloads will operate for about seven days until the lunar night sets on the South Pole, at which point Odysseus will become inoperable.
IM-1 is part of NASA’s new CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, which involves the space agency contracting commercial entities to deploy science missions on the moon ahead of the first Artemis crewed landing, which is currently scheduled for 2026.
A similar mission by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic in January failed to make it to the moon after a propellant leak impacted the Peregrine spacecraft soon after launch.
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