It ’s a thrilling calendar week for the moon : not only did this weekend see thelanding of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost mission , but there ’s another lunar landing place happening imminently too . visceral Machines will undertake to touch down its Nova - C lander tomorrow , March 6 , and NASA will be livestreaming the upshot so you’re able to watch over along from home .
What to expect from the landing
This will be Intuitive Machines ’ 2nd lunar landing place , following it Odysseus mission last year . That space vehicle did successfully make a flabby landing on the moon , but the lander tipped as it came down and stop up on its side on the lunar surface , which limit its ability to collect mogul using its solar panels . This meter , the companionship will be trust for a moving-picture show perfect landing place on its 2d endeavor , with a lander named Athena .
The delegation was launched on February 27 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA ’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida . Since then , it has been make its way to the moon and on Monday this week it arrived in lunar orbit . The spacecraft will make out a total of 39 lunar orbits before get in for landing , aim for a site at Mons Mouton near the moonshine ’s south pole .
The spacecraft is carrying a identification number of payloads include NASA engineering , such as an sparkler mining experiment which aims to examine out recitation and chemical analyzers that could be used for future crewed moon military mission . It includes a drill and a cat’s-paw call in a aggregated spectrometer designed to hunt for volatile compounds such as water , to aid in resource chromosome mapping for the Sun Myung Moon .
The Athena lander will unite the Blue Ghost lander on the moon as part of NASA ’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services or CLPS program , which provides support and support for private companies to develop lunar technology . The musical theme is for NASA to act upon with these private companies to fork over technology and supplies to the moonlight to support human geographic expedition there .
“ Through the Artemis campaign , commercial robotic deliveries will test technology , perform science experiments , and demonstrate capabilities on and around the Moon to facilitate NASA explore in improvement of Artemis Generation astronaut commission to the lunar open , and ultimately crew missions to Mars , ” NASA wrote in an update on the delegation .
How to watch the landing
unrecorded coverage of the landing place will begin at 11:30 a.m. ET ( 8:30 a.m. PT ) on Thursday , March 6 , with the landing attack itself scheduled for 12:32 p.m. ET ( 9:32 a.m. PT ) .
you may observe either using the TV embedded near the top of this page , or by head to theNASA YouTube pagefor the upshot .
