Picture This If I Build A Home On The Moon
Shane Rouse
Update for 7 pm ET: Touchdown! Intuitive Machines reports that its IM-1 lander Odysseus has landed on the moon and is transmitting a faint, but definite, signal. "Houston, Odysseus has found his new home," mission director Tim Crain said.
See our full landing story, video and photos.
Odysseus successfully entered lunar orbit on Wednesday following a crucial engine burn, and is slated to touch down near the moon's south pole on Thursday afternoon (Feb. 22) no earlier than 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT). You can tune in to the landing live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 5:00 p.m. EST (2300 GMT).
If Odysseus makes it, the lander will be the first private machine to successfully soft land on the moon and the first American vehicle overall to do so since the crewed Apollo 17 mission achieved the feat in 1972. You can watch the attempt here at Space.com.
The mission launched on Feb. 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bringing along 12 payloads for lunar investigations. Six of those experiments are from NASA and associated with the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.
NASA aims to use CLPS missions for science investigations ahead of the agency's Artemis program, which itself plans to put astronauts back on the moon in the 2020s and eventually establish a permanent base at the lunar south pole. The region is rich in water ice, which is useful for fueling and machinery.
One CLPS mission has already tried to reach the moon, but it didn't make it. Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander launched in January atop the first United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket. Peregrine, however, developed a fuel leak and instead was steered into Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 18.
Other private missions before Odysseus' IM-1 endeavor did indeed achieve lunar orbit before. Examples include Israel's Beresheet and Tokyo's Hakuto-R landers. Both missions, however, saw their spacecraft crash: Beresheet in April 2019 and Hakuto-R in April 2023.
Elizabeth Howell (she\/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, \"Why Am I Taller?\", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https:\/\/qoto.org\/@howellspace"}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Elizabeth HowellSocial Links NavigationStaff Writer, SpaceflightElizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: @howellspace
Hi, I am new and making my way through stuff slowley. i am trying to do a web scraping feature but battling trying to find the actual tags , i dont understand HTML so that makes its worse.
Basically im trying to fetch the dates of the moon phases from this website
moon19201080 521 KB
The image depicts Intuitive Machines' lander Odysseus with its engines still firing. On the left side, pictured above, landing gear pieces are visibly broken off from one of the robotic craft's six struts, said the company's CEO Steve Altemus.
The commercial lander has surprised its engineers and NASA with how long it has been able to continue operating in its slumped configuration. Earlier this week, Intuitive Machines estimated the lander would lose power on Feb. 27, due to the changing direction of sunlight and the angle of Odysseus' solar panels. But a day later, it was still generating solar power, though perhaps only for a few more hours, officials said.
The new image was released alongside another taken by the lander's narrow-field-of-view camera, which shows Odysseus on the ground, in its tilted sideways stance. The team thinks the lander, affectionally nicknamed "Odie," is either leaning on a helium tank or a computer shelf.
NASA officials say they consider the mission successful because all six of the agency's instruments onboard were functioning and gathering data. NASA's contract with Intuitive Machines was $118 million.
The unprecedented achievement of the first commercial uncrewed landing is a win for NASA, which has invested $2.6 billion in contracts with the company and several other vendors to deliver instruments to the moon over the next four years. The recruitment initiative, known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), is intended to establish a regular cadence of moon missions to prepare for putting NASA's Artemis astronauts on the moon in 2026 or later.
It's been more than a half-century since the first crewed moon landing, but getting onto the surface without crashing remains challenging. The lunar exosphere provides virtually no drag to slow a spacecraft down as it approaches the ground. Furthermore, there are no GPS systems on the moon to help guide a craft to its landing spot. Engineers have to compensate for these shortcomings from a quarter-million miles away.
A combination of gravity and inertia factors seem to have hindered both Odysseus and the Japanese moon lander SLIM, short for Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, said Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida. Both are on the moon, but neither is upright. Everything on the moon is "six times tippier," he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Flight controllers plan to see if they can wake Odysseus from sleep mode in about three weeks, following a long, cold lunar night. The risk is that the deep freeze, which can plunge to -270 degrees Fahrenheit, will destroy the chemistry of the batteries. But there is reason to be hopeful: Japan's lander, on a different part of the moon, recently awakened from its nightfall hibernation.
Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds. Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series. Send space tips and story ideas to [email protected] or text 443-684-2489. Follow her on X at @elishasauers.
25 October 2018One day, astronauts may return to the Moon -- not just for a short stay, but to live and work for months or even years! This is the dream of many scientists from space agencies such as ESA. To realise this dream, there are many challenges to overcome. One of these is, what could you build a Moon base from?
We could bring materials like metal or brick from Earth, but transporting equipment to the Moon from our home planet is very expensive. It would be better if we could make our Moon base from resources that are already there.
However, there is a problem: we do not have much lunar soil here on Earth to test this idea. Going back to the Moon to collect more would be very difficult! ESA scientists think there may be a better way. Moon dust is quite similar to the powder produced long ago by volcanoes. Around 45 million years ago, volcanic eruptions took place in a region around Cologne, in Germany. Researchers have found that the volcanic powder in the area is a good match with what lunar dust is made of. Best of all, there is plenty of it to easily collect and use for experiments! This stand-in for real lunar dust is called EAC-1, after the nearby European Astronaut Centre, called EAC for short, where the scientists work.
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