Commercial Space Mission Completes Lunar Orbit Insertion and Enters Lunar Orbit

For those of you interested, there will be an attempted moon landing Thursday afternoon, February 22. This will be the first powered moon landing attempt for the United States in over 50 years - the last U.S. mission to land on the moon was Apollo 17 in 1972.

Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, Texas, hopes to be one of the first commercial companies to land on the moon.

On Thursday, February 15, the Intuitive Machines mission Nova-C class lunar lander was successfully launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and reached space by establishing a stable attitude, solar charging, and radio communications contact with the Company’s mission operations center in Houston.

Here is the latest update:

IM-1 Mission Completes Lunar Orbit Insertion and Enters Lunar Orbit

“Odysseus completed its scheduled 408-second main engine lunar orbit insertion burn and is currently in a 92 km circular lunar orbit. Initial data indicates the 800 m/s burn was completed within 2 m/s accuracy. After traveling over 1,000,000 km, Odysseus is now closer to the Moon than the end-to-end distance driving across Space City, Houston, TX.

Over the next day, while the lander remains in lunar orbit, flight controllers will analyze the complete flight data and transmit imagery of the Moon. Odysseus continues to be in excellent health. We expect to continue to provide mission updates at least once a day on X and the IM-1 Mission web page, where we intend to host a live stream for landing coverage.”

You can also follow them on X for the latest updates: https://twitter.com/Int_Machines.