Intuitive Machines’ second moon mission continues to be on monitor to launch earlier than the tip of this yr, after the corporate solely needed to make minor changes to the lunar lander design, executives stated throughout an earnings name Thursday.
The corporate made historical past earlier this yr when it grew to become the primary business firm to land a spacecraft on the lunar floor. That mission, referred to as IM-1, was not with out its quirks — the lander in the end got here in a bit too sizzling and ended up tipped over on the floor — but it surely proved out the lander’s core elements, engine, and subsystems.
That very same lander class, which the corporate calls Nova-C, shall be returning to the moon later this yr in that second mission. Critically, the IM-2 mission will ship NASA payloads that can search the lunar South Pole for water ice, a useful resource that might ultimately be processed into propulsion for rockets or to assist a everlasting lunar astronaut habitat.
The Intuitive Machines group recognized simply “a handful of changes” that shall be applied on the second lander, CEO Steve Altemus stated in the course of the earnings name.
“We actually don’t see any impacts to the schedule based mostly on the modifications from IM-1,” he stated. “They’re pretty simple.”
Among the many modifications that the corporate shall be implementing are enhancements to the laser rangefinder change system, he added. The laser rangefinders are a navigational subsystem on the lander, and so they assist decide variables like altitude and horizontal velocity. Mission controllers realized very late within the recreation that the laser rangefinders on the primary lander weren’t practical — as a result of engineers didn’t activate a bodily change on the part whereas it was nonetheless on the bottom. (They managed to land the spacecraft anyway by means of some very fast considering.)
The second mission could also be impacted as a result of NASA continues to be finalizing the touchdown website, which shall be someplace on the lunar south pole on a ridge close to the Shackleton crater. When the house company initially introduced the touchdown website location for the IM-2 mission, they famous that information from the Lunar Orbiter spacecraft indicated that the world may have ice under the floor.
Intuitive Machines ended the fourth quarter of 2023 with $30.6 million in income and a money steadiness of simply $4.5 million. That quantity was given a major enhance after an intuitional investor exercised $50.6 million in warrants and the corporate closed a $10 million strategic fairness funding.
On account of these investments, as of March 1, the corporate’s money steadiness swelled to just about $55 million — the biggest steadiness “relative to any quarter-end” because the firm went public in February 2023.
Past the second moon mission, 2024 will probably be a pivotal yr for the corporate, which is awaiting the choice on NASA awards that could possibly be extraordinarily profitable. That features the award for the Lunar Terrain Automobile, which NASA will announce early subsequent month, and the following lunar lander contract underneath the company’s Industrial Lunar Payload Companies program.