HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines of Houston a contract to deliver research, including science investigations and a technology demonstration, to the Moon in 2024. The commercial delivery is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and the Artemis program.
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DULLES, Va. – Nov. 16, 2021 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC), is teaming up with AVL, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Michelin to design a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to transport NASA’s Artemis astronauts around the lunar surface. This team provides multi-disciplinary expertise that is ready to deliver an innovative solution to NASA for lunar surface mobility.
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By Hillary Smith
NASA’s Langley Research Center
HAMPTON, Va. — In late 2022, NASA will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater – a location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. NASA and Intuitive Machines, an agency partner for commercial Moon deliveries, announced the location selection Nov. 3.
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SAN FRANCISCO, September 24, 2021 (Orbit Fab PR) — Already the leading supplier of refueling ports for satellites, Orbit Fab announced that it will soon be launching the first propellant tanker to geostationary orbit. The company’s second tanker will establish flight heritage on all the elements of the company’s tanker technology, which has been designed for the harshest orbital regimes and for refueling the largest space assets. This announcement comes on the heels of the company’s successful launch of the world’s first Gas Stations in SpaceTM propellant depot last June into a low Earth orbit.
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SEATTLE, Sept. 14, 2021 (Spaceflight Inc. PR) — Spaceflight Inc., the leader in global launch services, today announced a breakthrough cislunar rideshare mission: “GEO Pathfinder.” As a secondary payload on board Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 South Pole Mission, Spaceflight will execute rideshare deployments in trans-lunar orbit, low-lunar orbit and beyond to geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO). Spaceflight will utilize a lunar flyby with its new propulsive transfer vehicle, Sherpa EScape (Sherpa-ES), to deliver a payload from GeoJump, a new company dedicated to providing smallsat rideshare opportunities to GEO, that will also contain an Orbit Fab in-space fueling payload. The mission is slated to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 no earlier than Q4 2022.
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Contract represents the fourth Lunar sensor award for MDA as the number of planned Moon missions grows
BRAMPTON, Ont. (MDA PR) — MDA Ltd. (TSX:MDA), a leading provider of advanced technology and services to the rapidly-expanding global space industry, today announced that it has signed an agreement with Intuitive Machines, LLC to provide Lunar landing sensors to support its upcoming IM-1 and IM-2 missions. As a result, MDA landing sensors will support the first soft landing US mission to the Moon since 1972, scheduled for early 2022. MDA landing sensors will also support the first ever mining mission to the South pole of the Moon in late 2022.
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HOUSTON (Intuitive Machines PR) — Intuitive Machines has partnered with global launch services provider Spaceflight Inc. to provide secondary rideshare services on its upcoming IM-2 South Pole Mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than December 2022.
Utilizing the excess capacity on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander, Spaceflight Inc. will offer rideshare opportunities onboard its next-gen Sherpa Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) for deployment into trans-lunar and low-lunar orbits and beyond to geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO).
IM-2 South Pole Mission includes a Nova-C class lander to land 130 kg of payloads on the lunar surface. It also has excess capacity on the launch vehicle that delivers 1000 kg of payloads on an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) ring into a direct throw high energy orbit. This high-energy ESPA “rideshare” option allows customers to proceed to lunar capture quickly, redirect to points elsewhere in high Earth orbit, or depart for destinations in the solar system with less demand on their propulsion.
HOUSTON (Intuitive Machines PR) — Intuitive Machines continues its mission to build a cislunar economy with its third mission (IM-3) to the Moon that will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket.
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ROCKVILLE, Md. (IBX PR) — IBX, an innovation and investment firm revolutionizing the space and energy sectors, announced today the addition of Steve Jurczyk as Executive Vice President of Space Operations. Jurczyk, who recently served as NASA’s Acting Administrator after a 33-year career at the U.S. space agency, will add his technical and leadership expertise to the IBX team, expanding efforts to explore market opportunities in space, technology, and energy to positively impact the world.
“We are delighted Steve Jurczyk is joining the IBX team, bringing a wealth of knowledge and his highly valued perspective about the aerospace industry to our strategic growth efforts of building the next-generation commercial space economy,” said Kam Ghaffarian, Founder and CEO of IBX. “Steve’s focus on innovation and leading breakthrough teams at NASA and across the country helped open the door to this new era in space exploration. We are lucky to have him on our IBX team.”
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PHOENIX (ASU PR) — Arizona State University is partnering with Intuitive Machines on a mini extreme mobility lunar vehicle, called Micro-Nova, that will hop around the moon’s surface and take the first-ever pictures inside craters close to the lunar south pole.
On July 16, 2021, NASA awarded the project a $41.6 million “Tipping Point” contract to develop, fly and operate a deployable lunar “hopper lander” on the moon. For this mission design, Micro-Nova can carry a 1-kilogram payload more than 2.5 kilometers to access lunar craters and enable high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface under the flight path.
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HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA is working on various science instruments and technology experiments from the agency that will operate on the Moon once American companies on Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts deliver them to the lunar surface. Through CLPS flights, NASA is buying a complete commercial robotic lunar delivery service and does not provide launch services, own the lander or lead landing operations.
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HAMPTON, Va. (NASA PR) — This little black camera looks like something out of a spy movie — the kind of device one might use to snap discrete photos of confidential documents.
It’s about half the size of a computer mouse.
But the only spying this camera — four of them, actually — will do is for NASA researchers wondering what happens under a spacecraft as it lands on the Moon.
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WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — In 2020, NASA made significant progress on America’s Moon to Mars exploration strategy, met mission objectives for the Artemis program, achieved significant scientific advancements to benefit humanity, and returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States, all while agency teams acted quickly to assist the national COVID-19 response.
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Research demonstrates how a series of lunar images could provide key navigational data
TROY, NY (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute PR) — In order for future lunar exploration missions to be successful and land more precisely, engineers must equip spacecraft with technologies that allow them to “see” where they are and travel to where they need to be. Finding specific locations amid the moon’s complicated topography is not a simple task.
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RENO, Nev. (Moon Mark PR) — Moon Mark, the entertainment and education company that will sponsor the first-ever race on the Moon in 2021, today announced it will partner with Golden, CO-based Lunar Outpost to secure the two racers that will make history.
Lunar Outpost will adapt its patented Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP), created for extraterrestrial scientific missions, for racing mobility.
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