The first robotic flight to the Moon by Intuitive Machines is open to the media as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) project and Artemis campaign. For everyone’s benefit, agency research and technology demos will be transported to the Moon via robotic deliveries.
Launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander will transport NASA science and commercial payloads. Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is scheduled to have a multi-day launch window that opens no sooner than mid-February. Liftoff is anticipated.
A communication and navigation node for upcoming autonomous navigation technologies, radio astronomy, plume-surface interactions, space weather/lunar surface interactions, and precision landing technologies are some of the instruments that NASA will be carrying on its lander with the Intuitive Machines mission. The CLPS model for commercial payload deliveries to the lunar surface will be strengthened by a successful landing. NASA is investing in less expensive ways to carry supplies to the Moon as the anchor customer of CLPS and hopes to become one of many clients.
NASA Kennedy will host prelaunch and launch events for the media. If any members of the US media would want to attend in person, they must apply for credentials by email at media@spacex.com by Monday, January 29 at 12 p.m. EST.
NASA gave Intuitive Machines a task order in May 2019 for the delivery. Commercial robotic delivery through Artemis will conduct science experiments, test technologies, and showcase capabilities to support NASA’s Moon exploration efforts ahead of Artemis Generation astronaut lunar surface missions, therefore laying the groundwork for future Mars missions.
Through the agency’s CLPS effort, NASA is collaborating with a number of American businesses to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface. On delivery task orders, this group of businesses may submit bids. The integration and operations of the payload, as well as the launch and landing from Earth on the Moon, are included in a task order award. The cumulative maximum contract value of NASA’s CLPS contracts, which have an indefinite-quantity/indefinite-delivery term through 2028, is $2.6 billion.
