We may be watching a historic moon touchdown right now.
Intuitive Machinesβ IM-1 spacecraft, the uncrewed Odysseus, may doubtlessly land on the floor of the Moon on Feb. 22 at round 4:24 p.m. ET, after an eight-day journey by area. Whereas we won’t be utterly certain that the touchdown shall be profitable, on Wednesday Intuitive Machines mentioned Odysseus “continues to be in glorious well being in lunar orbit.”
You may watch the official stream on Intuitive Machines’ website, on NASA’s web site, NASA Tv, the NASA app, or on NASA+. You can even sustain by following weblog updates on NASA’s web site. The dwell protection begins at round 3:00 p.m. ET, will proceed by the potential touchdown, and ends with a information convention held by NASA.
The spacecraft is anticipated to land close to Malapert A crater within the south pole area of the moon.
Odysseus launched on Feb. 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complicated 39A at NASAβs Kennedy Area Middle. Its touchdown would make the primary business moon touchdown and is kind of the feat. Touchdown on the moon is an infamously tough activity for quite a lot of causes, together with the dearth of GPS methods and atmospheric drag. Solely 5 international locations, together with the previous Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India, and Japan, have landed on the moon and not using a vital wreck.