The spacecraft is the Nova C lunar lander built by Innovative Projects (IM). It will take off from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, on February 14. NASA officials announced it.
«It is part of NASA's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. And from the Artemis campaign. SpaceX is targeting the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket with the first lunar lander from Intuitive Machines. “It will be at 05:57 GMT on February 14,” the US space agency said in a statement.
Camera landing
The module is expected to land on the Moon about 10 degrees away from the lunar south pole on February 22. The trip will last 6 days.
NASA's new mission to the Moon has a wide spectrum of tasks. «It will carry certain elements in the lander. They are NASA science and technology instruments. They will focus on interactions between space weather and the lunar surface, radio astronomy and precision landing technologies. “It will establish a communication and navigation node for future autonomous vehicles,” NASA said.
Four cameras on the spacecraft will observe the patterns of dust it will move upon landing. It will be preparation for the eventual moon landing of four American astronauts at the end of this decade. This was confirmed by NASA researcher Michelle Munk at a conference.
Failed attempts
NASA's most recent attempt to reach the moon failed shortly after its launch in January. And he had to return to Earth. Peregrine Lunar Lander was intended to be the first private robotic flight to the Moon as part of the large Artemis project. The United States planned, once again, to send humans to the Earth's natural satellite.
The module carried 20 payloads. Among them five instruments from NASA and the Colmena Project developed in Mexico. It consists of five microrobots that would explore the lunar surface and dust in search of minerals, water or precious metals. It was the first mission with which Mexico was going to travel to the Moon. It was designed by scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
