Earlier this year in February Intuitive Machines, a U.S. company, managed to touchdown on the Moon, albeit, sideways after the lander tipped over. While not ideal, they still managed to complete a decent amount of the mission’s original science goals and objectives. Interestingly, a lot of those objectives apply to the next lander which is in the final assembly stage right now.
The mission, named IM-2, a follow-up to IM-1, will again use the Nova-C lander, which was the same design as the previous lander. The main difference being a change in payloads and mission objectives once it lands on the surface, along with a few upgrades. Here I will go more in-depth into this lander’s current progress, alterations since the last launch, new objectives, and more.
Second Try
On the first attempt early this year, team members discovered that Odysseus’ laser rangefinders, which the lander uses to determine its altitude and horizontal velocity, weren’t working properly. It turned out that the company failed to disable a safety switch related to this system which was the source of its problems. As a result, they decided to switch over to an experimental NASA instrument that Odysseus was carrying, pressing it into service for vital landing operations. Unfortunately, as the lander was approaching the surface, it was still moving sideways rather than just vertically and it was thought that one of its landing legs got caught on a rock, breaking a leg and causing the entire lander to tip over on its side. It would stay like this until eventually running out of power about a week later.
With that being said, the next lander is already almost complete. Last month in May the company tweeted saying, “Like cars on Earth, we monitor our spacecraft’s temperatures in space. Engineers installed these tank sensors before starting the final assembly of our soon-to-be-named IM-2 mission lunar lander.” In terms of the design, it again will feature a tall body covered in solar panels and the respective mission payloads. Not long after the first landing attempt Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines was quoted saying, “Right now we’re not at a point where we can’t back out of anything that we’ve done. We certainly can rewrite software, we can change components” he said. Here he’s referring to the next lander which due to the fast pace and schedule, was already not far from complete when the initial lander was launched.
In other words, because of this aggressive schedule and fast pace, large physical changes to the lander aren’t quite possible if teams want to stay on the current schedule laid out. That being said, software and other components can be altered. Considering one of the last mission’s main complications had to do with the landing software, this is promising for the second try.
Steve Altemus also said, “It’s a daunting challenge to land on the moon. It doesn’t come easy, especially when you’re trying to break the barrier of a price point” of about $100 million. It’s a success that we ought to really celebrate” he said.
As far as specific upgrades to this new lander, in an earnings call, he commented, “The review resulted in software and hardware advancements that we believe expand our technical capability to track our vehicle accurately in space and land with 20 times better precision on our next mission.” He also talked about upgrades related to communication with the lander. This has to do with alternating the configuration of the lander’s antennas. In another quote, he said, “The technical improvements for IM-2 are vertically integrated capabilities within the company that we can perform with little or no impact on our intended quarter 4 2024 launch date or require any additional capital investment while we continue assembly of the flight vehicle.”
With this in mind, it’s clear that the schedule set in place is very important to the company, and that they’re adamant to complete a few upgrades and keep on building. As far as the launch vehicle, the first mission launched on a Falcon 9, and that will again be the launch provider later this year for the second mission. If the rush toward the second launch wasn’t ambitious enough, the third mission is also underway with construction not far behind the second lander. Specifically, IM-3, again using the same lander is set to launch in early 2025. This means we could see IM-2 launch and then just a few months later IM-3. This puts even more pressure on teams to execute the mission and avoid any problems on this second upcoming attempt. In terms of the customer, all three of these initial missions include NASA among other commercial payloads.
New Objectives
On this second mission, teams have even more ambitious plans than the first. The plan is to send an ice-mining experiment attached to the robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater – a location engineers and scientists have assessed for many months. They point out that 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.
They believe these conditions offer the best chance of success for the three technology demonstrations aboard. One of which, is the NASA-funded Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1)– which consists of a drill paired with a mass spectrometer – a communications network and a deployable hopper robot developed by Intuitive Machines.
“PRIME-1 is permanently attached to Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, and finding a landing location where we might discover ice within three feet of the surface was challenging,” said Dr. Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “While there is plenty of sunlight to power the payloads, the surface gets too warm to sustain ice within reach of the PRIME-1 drill. We needed to find a ‘goldilocks’ site that gets just enough sunlight to meet mission requirements while also being a safe place to land with good Earth communications.”
In a statement, the agency said, “To select this final landing location, experts from NASA, Arizona State University, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Nokia, and Intuitive Machines created “ice-mining” maps of the lunar surface using lunar remote sensing data. After landing, the PRIME-1 drill, known as The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT), will attempt to drill up to three feet deep, extract lunar soil – called regolith – and deposit it on the surface for water analysis. PRIME-1’s other instrument, the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo), will measure volatile gases that readily escape from the material excavated by TRIDENT.
In addition, Space technology company Lunar Outpost will send their first lunar rover the Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP). The rover will collect lunar samples for NASA under a contract worth just $1, which is symbolic of a new incentive for the emerging commercial space industry to access resources in space. Photos of the samples and other data will be transmitted through radio equipment and antennas to communicate with the Nova-C lander.
There also is the Micro-Nova rover, which will aim to deploy to the surface and hop into a nearby crater to acquire pictures and science data before hopping out. It will then send the data back to Nova-C. Micro-Nova can carry a two-pound payload more than 1.5 miles to access lunar craters and enable high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface. This demonstration could help pave the way for additional commercial lunar exploration services. In the future, scientists may have the opportunity to outfit a hopper with their own small science instruments, such as cameras, seismometers, lunar ranging systems, and more. If it works as intended, it could give a first look into undiscovered areas that may provide the critical science needed to sustain a human presence on the Moon.
In a data visualization from NASA, it gives a view of what the landing location looks like. Specifically, it shows that near the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton – the large crater on the right – was selected as the landing site for Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, which will deliver technology demonstrations to the Moon’s surface under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. They believe these conditions at the site offer the best chance of success for three technology demonstrations onboard.
In one final quote, the company said, “We’ve made every effort to take the complexity and cost out of getting to the Moon. Our full service, from the lander to rideshare, to the processing facility, to the ground support systems, has been designed to integrate your payload and provide Lunar Access Services as smooth and affordable as possible. Our services include a dedicated launch vehicle, deployment in cislunar space, short transit times to the lunar surface (typically six days), and a precision landing capability to ensure you land when and where you want” they said. With the launch only a few months away assuming it stays on schedule, we will soon see the improvements made to the system as they try again to land on the Moon.
Conclusion
Intuitive Machines is already almost done with the second Nova-C lander, a follow-up to the first. While the physical design is practically the same, there have been some software upgrades along with a change in payloads. The teams belive however that these changes are plenty for a successful and upright landing later this year. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.