Back on the moon!

chazmo

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This seems to have been really under the radar and low key, but yesterday a private US company (Intuitive Machines) landed an unmanned set of equipment on the moon. If you haven't already read about this, It's our (US's) first time back on the moon's surface since Apollo! And, the real "breakthrough" here is that a relatively small, private company did this using SpaceX (not small, but private) rocket as transport! They provided the lander as payload that was lifted up by the SpaceX rocket and took itself to the moon and landed. I'm delighted and amazed. Frankly, this opens up so many possibilities. Intuitive Machines did this for under $200M. Yes, that's an M, not a B!

Also, totally fascinating, is that this young company (11 years old) is setting up a communications array that will allow undisturbed data access to the dark "side" and beyond-the-moon travelers.

 

chazmo

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Apparently, the lander fell on its side (didn't know that from the original reports). They are getting a lot of functions out of it, but it's unfortunate. Japan's lander had a similar situation recently. I guess it's not so easy to automate the process of landing cleanly.
 
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