This is how they will seek to colonize Artemis.
After the Peregrino mission fiasco, as soon as it began its journey to the Moon, NASA will try again with the intuitive IM-1 machines.. This is the second flight in a month to reach Earth’s natural satellite, where the United States has not sent anything since 1972. The launch will take place this Wednesday, February 14, at 6:57 am from mainland Spain aboard the spacecraft. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket plans to land at the South Pole on the 22nd.
This mission is part of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), a program organized and promoted by NASA. hires private companies to send scientific and technological materials to the Moon. The goal is to create a space bridge of sorts to support Artemis, which revised its launch schedule a few weeks ago, as well as the astronauts who will colonize the satellite in the future.
Heat emissions according to the CLPS program vital to NASA’s plans to colonize the Moon. They demonstrate the United States’ ability to rely on private companies to send all types of materials to the satellite. These early missions focused on instruments, but in the future they could become consumables or tools for Artemis-owned lunar astronauts.
In the very heart IM-1 lies lunar lander “Nova-S”, designed and built by American Intuitive Machines. This lander “It is equipped with the most advanced technologies, including a propulsion system that runs on an environmentally friendly mixture of liquid oxygen and methane,” the company said.
Success “will lay the foundation for a thriving lunar economy, opening up new opportunities for exploration, trade and exploration,” they explain. “By expanding our ability to work on the lunar surface, the mission sets the stage for more ambitious efforts. including the creation of lunar bases and resource exploration“.
Nova-C has a height of 4.3 meters, an overall diameter of 1.6 meters and a weight of 675 kilograms. The payload is 130 kilograms, and including fuel it reaches 1900 kilograms at takeoff. It uses solar panels to power its battery and The estimated useful life is one lunar day.which corresponds to 14 Earth days.
A motor was developed with which it can reach a speed of 11 km per second. built using 3D printing and is fed from two reservoirs located in the core lander. The ship’s position is controlled by a system of small engines built into the top of the ship that use high pressure helium.
Delicate Journey
As soon as the countdown comes to an end and the rocket along with lander Nova-C takes off from Cape Canaveral, mission will encounter 8 day trip to the moon. Shortly after launch, a spring will gently push the lander away from the Falcon 9’s second stage to begin its solo journey.
As is already standard for this type of space travel, the entire navigation system programmed to work offline. Once the rotation lander After decoupling, star tracking cameras will analyze the resulting sky images.
“He software on board take measurements using a star tracker and processes them using an algorithm known as a Kalman filter,” they point out from Intuitive Machines. This information is key in the first minutes of a solo flight, as it provides the necessary guidance so that the navigation system knows where it should go.
Close-up of the Nova-S lander.
During the flight, the ground control tower located in Houston, Texas, will be responsible for monitoring each maneuver and key elements, such as the extreme thermal conditions to which it will be exposed. As they explain, they will make small corrections until Nova-S intercepted low lunar orbitlocated at an altitude of about 100 km above the surface.
From now on one of the most important processes of the entire journey. The team responsible for the IM-1 mission will begin a cycle of inspections to analyze the status of the module and its onboard systems in preparation for landing.
This includes, as stated, calibration of optical navigation cameras for lunar lighting conditions. These types of cameras are critical to ensuring that the ship places its feet in the designated area, as well as to properly execute the approach to the satellite.
After completion of the descent into orbit, the spacecraft lander It will be installed at an altitude of 10 kilometers near the landing site. From now on, the role of Texas control center technicians simple telemetry viewer and analyzer.
All this data on the state of the ship will be intercepted thanks to NASA’s deep space antenna network, one of whose three global stations is located in Robledo de Chavela (Madrid). Navigation system then take full control again reduce altitude and speed and perform final approach and landing maneuver.
Image of Nova-S on the surface of the Moon
Information captured by Nova-C’s cameras and lasers will be used in control and navigation algorithms that “provide guidance and control” during the final stages of flight. “Sensors are similar to human eyes which collect location, speed and orientation data,” they point out.
These algorithms developed by the company “they play the role of the brain” by determining where and how the ship must move in order to land at a specified location. To do this, it executes commands to start the engine and use thrusters, adjusting the trajectory.
The ship is designed to land at a speed of one meter per second. “Flight Dispatchers (Company) expect a delay of about 15 seconds before landing is confirmed soft on the surface of the Moon.
Tools on board
NASA, as the organizer of this mission, A total of 5 payloads were recorded on board the Nova-C.. All of them focus on different scientific and technological areas and will be key to the preparation of future missions, both manned and not.
Because the Moon has no global magnetic field to protect it, charged particles—from the solar wind, cosmic rays, and solar flares—can reach the surface and create a “plasma environment on the surface”. This thin film rises up to 2 meters above the regolith and will become the field of study for the ROLSES instrument.
Nova-S flight as part of the IM-1 mission
ROLLSES “will also detect bursts of solar radio emissionradio emissions from Jupiter, dust impacting the surface of the Moon, and how noisy Earth’s natural radio emissions are,” NASA points out. “These measurements will help future exploration missions by demonstrating the plasma environment that astronauts and other exploration systems will encounter.
LN-1 is another important bet of the US Space Agency in the coming years, which will pass through creation of a kind of lunar geopositioning system, in the purest terrestrial GPS style. While LN-1 is a first approach, NASA’s goal is to create a network of beacons on the lunar surface that will serve as beacons for future missions.
Other payloads: NDL is a laser system that provides speed and altitude data very accurately during landing – SCALPSS – which detects the impact of the dust plume from the aircraft engine. lander on the lunar surface – and RFMG – a system that will use radio waves and antennas to measure the exact amount of fuel available.
In addition to NASA, Intuitive Machines also supplied available to other private companies part of the space inside lander Nova-S. Textile brand Columbia has introduced a new material that protects the module from extreme temperatures.
Image of the Nova-S lunar module landing on the Moon.
Joining the mission is EagleCam, a camera that will be responsible for filming for the first time in history. Third-person footage of a spacecraft landing on the moon. There will also be space for 125 miniature sculptures, each associated with an NFT – a camera designed to collect images of the Milky Way and the first Data center mole.
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