BREAVRD COUNTY, Fla. — NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative is about to launch its second moon mission in as many months.
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In January, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station bound for a March moon landing.
And later this month, Intuitive Machines second lunar lander, Athena, will liftoff atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 with its own NASA science and technology demonstrations.
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It will also carry a robot designed to hop in and out of permanently shadowed regions of the lunar surface.
Dr. Nicky Fox the Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate said, “So for us, the excitement of having not one but two lunar landers carrying on NASA’s science there at the same time is just really amazing. As we do with all of NASA’s science, you know, we are very cross disciplined, cross divisional. We do. You know, all of the work. We like to put it together. No, no one result stands on its own. It’s always in the context of our big goals and NASA’s science.”
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The 4-day launch window for the latest intuitive machine mission (IM-2) opens on February 26.
The company’s first lander, named Odysseus, launched last year and made it all the way to the moon’s surface.
It ultimately tipped over.
This time, Athena is set to demonstrate lunar mobility, and water hunting capabilities critical to establishing a sustainable infrastructure both the moon’s surface and in space.
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