American private company spacecraft takes off with mission to land on the Moon

An American spacecraft took off this Thursday (15) from the Kennedy Space Center with the mission to land on the Moon, the second attempt by a private company this year, after the failure of another group in January.

The company Intuitive Machines, responsible for the “IM-1” mission, hopes to become the first non-governmental institution to perform a soft landing on Earth's natural satellite and land the first American robot on its surface since the Apollo missions, more than five decades.

The Nova-C landing module, hexagonal in shape and called “Odysseus”, took off at 1:06 am on Thursday (3:06 am Brasília time) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.

The IM-1 mission was supposed to take off on Wednesday (14), but the launch was postponed after SpaceX detected abnormal temperatures during an attempt to refuel the module.

The landing module has a new type of supercooled liquid methane and oxygen engine that provides the power to quickly reach its destination, avoiding long exposure to the high-radiation region around Earth known as the Van Allen belt.

Trent Martin, vice president of special systems at Intuitive Machines, told the press that the “opportunity for the United States to return to the Moon for the first time since 1972 is an engineering feat that requires a true desire to explore.”

Despite the delay, the spacecraft is expected to arrive on February 22 at the landing point, Malapert A, an impact crater located 300 kilometers from the lunar south pole.

NASA, the US space agency, hopes to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and collect ice for drinking water and rocket fuel under its Artemis program.

– Charge –

NASA paid 118 million dollars (586 million reais) to Intuitive Machines to transport scientific equipment to the natural satellite, to help more efficiently understand and mitigate environmental risks for astronauts.

But the ship carries more colorful cargo, including a digital archive of human knowledge and 125 small sculptures of the Moon by artist Jeff Koons.

After landing, the payloads must operate for seven days, before the start of the lunar night at the south pole, when Odysseus will be inoperative.

IM-1 is the second mission in a NASA initiative created to delegate cargo services to the private sector to cut costs and stimulate a broader lunar economy.

The first, from the company Astrobotic, was launched in January, but the Peregrine spacecraft suffered a fuel leak and its landing module had to be deliberately destroyed in mid-flight.

Soft landing is a challenge because it involves navigating unstable terrain, with a delay of several seconds in communication with Earth, and using the thrusters without the presence of an atmosphere that supports parachutes.

Only five countries have achieved this feat: the Soviet Union was the first nation, followed by the United States, which to this day is the only country to place people on the lunar surface.

China has already posed three times since 2013, India succeeded in 2023 and Japan in February last year, although the Japanese module has faced difficulties in remaining activated.