Commercial moon missions with NASA connections are all the rage. Firefly Aerospace stuck the lunar landing of its Blue Ghost mission on March 2. Now intuitive machines will try similar success with its Mission IM-2 on Thursday. It should be an exciting ride, and you can follow live.
What is IM-2?
Nova-C Lunar Lander Intuitive Machines is nicknamed Athena. He has a series of scientific instruments and robots – including a jumping drone, several small rovers and a NASA exercise designed to dig three feet below the surface. The cargo of Lander understands both NASA and useful commercial charges.
The mission is part of the NASA lunar payload sales program, an effort from the space agency to use private companies to send moonors and rivers to the moon. The largest objectives of NASA through its Artemis Moon program are to return astronauts to the lunar surface and to establish a long -term human presence there. IM-2 is at the service of this vision.
“The landing is transporting NASA technology which will measure the potential presence of resources from the lunar soil that could be extracted and used by future explorers to produce fuel or breathable oxygen”. The space agency said in an update of March 4.
When the landing of the Moon im-2?
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The IM-2 mission returned a few views of the earth after the launch in February.
Athena’s trips started on February 26 with a launch on a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket in Florida. Intuitive machines aims to land the mission at 9:32 pm on Thursday, March 6. The landing site is located near the southern pole of the moon, a target region of the main NASA for future human exploration.
The timing was partly dictated by the availability of sunlight on the surface of the moon. The Athena Lander uses solar energy. Intuitive machines expect the Lander to work for about 10 days.
How to look at landing im-2
The live landing coverage of NASA takes place on its free NASA plus streaming service from 8:30 am PT, about an hour before the touch. Nasa more is available on the website or via the NASA application. The broadcast will also be on YouTube.
A press conference after landing is scheduled for 1 p.m. PT.
MIT is on the moon to stay
There is another way of engaging with landing and mission festivities. Comcast Xfinity Service and MIT Media Lab joined forces with real -time coverage. The MIT is involved in the Lunar Outpost Mobile Lunar Outpost Autonomous Prospecting Prospecting Platform. MAPP is designed to navigate in accidental ground using sensors and visual indices.
Put To the moon to stay The program offers educational resources and will provide a live broadcast of landing as well as other key events in the mission. Keep an eye on a later live flow involving the Mapp Rover with photos and videos of the lunar surface.
XFINITY X1 customers can access the mission resources and live difficulties by saying “to the Moon” to their vocal remote controls.
Why IM-2 is important
Spatial crew missions tend to attract a lot of attention. IM-2 may not have humans on board, but it is worth following fascinating science. Planetary scientist Phil Metzger, research professor at the University of Florida Centrale, highlights the experience of exploring the polar resources of the Mission 1.
Prime-1 aims to measure the ice in the moon floor, and it is a big problem.
“This ice contains a recording of the history of the inner solar system and can help us understand how water and carbon were delivered to the earth-moon system billions of years ago, transforming the earth into a habitable planet,” Metzger told Cnet. “This is crucial to understand how many other planets could be able to support life in the galaxy, so it helps to answer the question:” Are we alone in the cosmos? “” You cannot become deeper than that.
NASA hopes that Prime-1 will help researchers understand the availability of water. The water is heavy and costly to transport in space, so future human expeditions will want to use what is already on the moon.
The landing on the moon is difficult
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Athena returned a lunar selfie in orbit around the moon.
Many missions have tried and have failed to hit the moon successfully. Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed on the moon in 2023. The mission of Beresheet of Israel and the Chandraya-2 Vikram Lander of India both crushed in 2019. “Lunar moles are difficult, not only because the lunar environment is so hard and exotic, but because we fly so few of them,” says Metzger, the note of failures is part of the learning process in the way of making the airs of the moon.
It is much more difficult to touch the moon than on earth. “The moon has a gravity large enough to make time to land slowly, but no atmosphere to help slow a Lander,” said Josh Colwell, a associate dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Florida Centrale. “The surface is very rough at all spatial scales, so the tilting of a Lander is a real risk.”
It’s not just a question of having good landing equipment. Software and systems on board must analyze the surface to help guide the landing for a safe place.
Lunar landings are exciting, partly because of the dangers that machines must navigate for a safe touch.
You may be wondering what happened to the IM-1 mission. Intuitive machines delivered its Ulysses to the Moon in 2024, but everything did not go well. The landing has risen to the surface, but found itself laterally, putting an obstacle to its scientific work. The company is rooted for a soft and straight landing for IM-2.
