HAMBURG, Germany — As Intuitive Machines prepares for the launch of its first lunar lander mission, the company says it’s planning for up to three lander launches in 2024.
In a Nov. 13 earnings call to discuss the company’s third quarter financial results, the company confirmed it is working towards a Jan. 12 launch of its IM-1 mission on a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center.
That launch slipped from mid-November, and in the call executives strongly suggested, but did not explicitly state, that “launch pad congestion” at KSC’s Launch Complex 39A was the reason for the delay. IM-1 needs to launch from that pad because it is the only one equipped to fuel the lander with methane and liquid oxygen shortly before liftoff.
“Schedule changes and mission adjustments are a natural consequence of pioneering lunar exploration,” Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said on the call. The company, he described, was using the delay “smartly” to do testing of the Nova-C lander now that was previously planned to take place at the launch site, with the spacecraft scheduled to ship to Florida later in the month.
A launch on Jan. 12 would set up the spacecraft for a landing attempt on the moon Jan. 19. While IM-1 is now scheduled to launch after Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, slated to lift off on the inaugural Vulcan Centaur Dec. 24, it may land before Peregrine, which is taking a less direct trajectory to the moon. Altemus said in the call that he understood that, if Peregrine launches on time, it would attempt its landing Jan. 20, a day after IM-1.
However, a spokesperson for Astrobotic said Nov. 13 that the date he gave was incorrect, and that the company would only announce a planned landing date after the launch. In a separate presentation at NASA’s Planetary Science Advisory Committee Nov. 13, Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said the landing of Peregrine was expected “towards…
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