Back to the moon we go!
The first private American spacecraft is set to land on the moon on Thursday, Feb. 22, after launching atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center. This will mark the first U.S. lunar landing without astronauts in more than 50 years, if successful.
The NOVA-C lander from Intuitive Machines is the second private lander to attempt landing on the moon. Last month, Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lander developed a fuel leak that forced the company to abandon its landing attempt.
[WATCH THE LAUNCH AGAIN BELOW]
NASA project scientist Sue Lederer described in a teleconference how these landers lay the groundwork for NASA’s long-term goals of science and exploration on the moon.
“The goal here is for us to investigate the moon in preparation for Artemis,” Lederer said. “These commercial companies will be bringing our instruments along for the ride enabling our investigations.”
Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, spoke with News 6′s James Sparvero about the experiments onboard, like a payload that films dust ejecting from the lunar surface.
“So we get a really good understanding of how that dust plume moves without an atmosphere so that when designing systems like habitats and landing pads, we can understand what the detrimental effects of that dust impinging on them might be,” Altemus said.
The spacecraft is expected to land on the moon at 5:49 p.m. EST.
You can listen to every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate in the media player below: