Intuitive Machines Lunar Landing Site Moves to South Pole

Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander inside the company's facility at the Houston Spaceport. Credits: Intuitive Machines.
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander inside the company’s facility at the Houston Spaceport. Credits: Intuitive Machines.

NASA, in cooperation with Intuitive Machines, is moving the landing site for the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission to Moon’s South Pole as an important first step in managing risks for future Artemis landings.

One of the first lunar payload deliveries under NASA’s CLPS initiative was awarded to Intuitive Machines in May 2019. The company’s first flight, Intuitive Machines-1 (IM-1) will carry six NASA payloads on its Nova-C lunar lander to a site near the Malapert A crater. This relatively flat and safe region is within the heavily cratered southern highlands on the side of the Moon visible from Earth.

The NASA payloads will focus on demonstrating communication, navigation and precision landing technologies, and gathering scientific data about rocket plume and lunar surface interactions, as well as space weather and lunar surface interactions affecting radio astronomy. Through the CLPS initiative, NASA is supporting the development of a lunar economy by working with American companies to deliver scientific, exploration, and technology payloads to the Moon’s surface and lunar orbit.

The decision to move from the original landing site in Oceanus Procellarum was based on a need to learn more about terrain and communications near the lunar South Pole, which is expected to be one of the best locations for a sustained human presence on the Moon. Landing near Malapert A also will help mission planners understand how to communicate and send data  back to Earth from a location that is low on the lunar horizon. The landing date is expected in the third quarter of 2023.

While NASA is the primary customer purchasing lunar delivery services, CLPS vendors also work with other customers to send non-NASA payloads to the Moon. CLPS providers are responsible for managing their activities to ensure they are compliant with NASA schedule requirements. Intuitive Machines will confirm the launch date, lunar landing date, and duration of lunar surface operations, as well as updates on the thermal environment that the payloads will experience, given the temperature extremes for lunar transit and at the lunar South Pole.

The Malapert A region is seen near the top of this topographic map of the Moon’s South Pole based on data released by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter.
The Malapert A region is seen near the top of this topographic map of the Moon’s South Pole based on data released by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter. Credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute Regional Planetary Image Facility.

Learn more about CLPS activities by following the CLPS blog, @NASAMoon and @NASAArtemis on Twitter, as well as the NASA Moon Facebook and Artemis Instagram accounts.

Read the latest Moon news at: https://moon.nasa.gov/news/articles

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New Landing Site Will Upgrade Science Returns for Astrobotic Flight

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which will launch on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket and deliver NASA payloads to the Moon. Credits: Astrobotic.
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which will launch on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket and deliver NASA payloads to the Moon. Credits: Astrobotic.

Through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, NASA is working with American companies to deliver scientific, exploration, and technology payloads to the Moon’s surface and orbit. The science investigations and technology demonstrations delivered to the lunar surface through CLPS are part of the agency’s broader goal of returning humans to the Moon through Artemis, and the success of CLPS could help further establish American leadership in the global and commercial space industries. 

Astrobotic’s first orders for scientific payload delivery were awarded in May 2019.  Astrobotic will deliver NASA payloads on its first flight to the lunar surface using the company’s Peregrine lunar lander. These NASA payloads will investigate specific aspects in and around the landing site. Astrobotic also will carry some non-NASA payloads from other organizations.

The original landing site for Astrobotic’s flight within Lacus Mortis, which is in the northeast quadrant of the lunar nearside of the Moon, was chosen by Astrobotic to suit its lander performance and safety, as well as Astrobotic’s preferences.  However, as NASA’s Artemis activities mature, it became evident the agency could increase the scientific value of the NASA payloads if they were delivered to a different location. The science and technology payloads planned for this delivery to the Moon presented NASA scientists with a valuable opportunity, prompting the relocation of the landing site to a mare – an ancient hardened lava flow – outside of the Gruithuisen Domes, a geologic enigma along the mare/highlands boundary on the northeast border of Oceanus Procellarum, or Ocean of Storms, the largest dark spot on the Moon. The Domes are suspected to have been formed by a sticky magma rich in silica, similar in composition to granite. On Earth, formations like these need significant water content and plate tectonics to form, but without these key ingredients on the Moon, lunar scientists have been left to wonder how these domes formed and evolved over time. With the selection of the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE), a suite of instruments that will investigate the origin and composition of the Gruithuisen Domes in 2026 on a separate CLPS delivery, relocation of Astrobotic’s Peregrine CLPS flight to a mare near the Domes will present complementary and meaningful data to Lunar-VISE without introducing additional risk to the lander.

CLPS providers are responsible for managing their activities to ensure they are compliant with NASA schedule requirements. While NASA is the primary customer purchasing a flight to send its payloads to the lunar surface, CLPS vendors also work with other customers to send non-NASA payloads to the Moon.  

Follow along for more updates on Astrobotic’s upcoming flight in 2023 and other CLPS news!

The Gruithuisen Domes, seen in an image captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera.The Gruithuisen Domes, seen in an image captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Learn more about CLPS activities by following the CLPS blog, @NASAMoon and @NASAArtemis on Twitter, as well as the NASA Moon Facebook and Artemis Instagram accounts.

Read the latest Moon news at: https://moon.nasa.gov/news/articles

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

Welcome to NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Blog

CLPS Overview

NASA’s exploration of the Moon has always been made possible by working with American companies, and the return to the lunar surface through the Artemis program will continue this collaboration. Through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, NASA is working with American companies to deliver scientific, exploration, and technology payloads to the Moon’s surface and orbit. The CLPS model aims to enable new avenues of completing high-value/high–priority scientific investigations and exploration while expanding the lunar economy and build a marketplace on the Moon, where NASA will be one of many customers, along with universities and international partners, sending payloads to the Moon. NASA’s goals for CLPS are to enable science at and about the Moon using low- to mid-size commercial landers; enabling NASA to advance technologies and systems on the lunar surface; and to develop a commercial community of service providers for Artemis.

In 2018, nine U.S. companies were selected to be part of a pool of vendors eligible to bid on contracts. A year later, five more vendors were added, bringing the total of CLPS participants to 14. The first orders for scientific payload delivery were awarded to Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines in May 2019, with three flights total expected in 2023.

The first payloads heading to the Moon through CLPS are being launched ahead of crewed missions to help NASA better understand how to operate in the lunar environment before landing the next generation of explorers.

Astrobotic

  • Awarded to Astrobotic using their Peregrine lunar lander and scheduled to land in 2023. The Peregrine 1 mission will carry 11 NASA payloads that will investigate the lunar exosphere, thermal properties of the lunar regolith, hydrogen abundances in the soil at the landing site, magnetic fields, and conduct radiation environment monitoring. Solar array technologies will also be tested at the surface.

Intuitive Machines

  • Awarded to Intuitive Machines using their Nova-C lunar lander and scheduled to land in 2023. The IM-1 mission will carry payloads that will focus on plume-surface interactions, space weather/lunar surface interactions, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies, and a communication and navigation node for future autonomous navigation technologies. As one of the first CLPS deliveries, a successful landing will help prove the CLPS model for commercial payload deliveries to the lunar surface.
  • PRIME-1: Awarded to Intuitive Machines and scheduled to land at the south pole in 2023. This will be the first in-situ resource utilization demonstration on the Moon utilizing a drill and mass spectrometer to measure the volatile content of subsurface materials. This is the first CLPS procurement of contract acquired scientific data.

Get to know more about CLPS and take a look at some of the commercial lunar lander concepts and payloads in this video.

Follow along here as 2023 will bring many exciting updates for CLPS and NASA’s lunar exploration efforts!

Learn more about CLPS activities by following the CLPS blog, @NASAMoon and @NASAArtemis on Twitter, as well as the NASA Moon Facebook and Artemis Instagram accounts.

Read the latest CLPS news at: https://www.nasa.gov/CLPS

Get the latest from NASA delivered every week. Subscribe here: www.nasa.gov/subscribe