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First U.S. moon landing since 1972 set to happen today as spacecraft closes in on lunar surface
Houston-based Intuitive Machines readied its Odysseus lander for touchdown on the moon today, a nail-biting one-hour 13-minute descent from orbit to become the first U.S.-built spacecraft to stick a moon landing in more than 50 years and the first ever by a private company.
One day after braking into a 57-mile-high orbit tilted 80 degrees to the moon’s equator, Odysseus’ methane-fueled main engine was primed to ignite at 4:17 p.m. EST, lowering the far side of the orbit to a point near the landing site some 186 miles from the moon’s south pole.
As the 14-foot-tall spacecraft descends toward the surface, on-board cameras and lasers are programmed to scan the ground below to identify landmarks, providing steering inputs to the lander’s guidance system to help fine tune the trajectory.
One hour later, at 5:18 p.m., the main engine is expected to ignite again at an altitude of about 18 miles and to keep firing for the final 10 minutes of the descent, flipping Odysseus from a horizontal orientation to vertical and dropping straight down at just under 4 mph.
As the spacecraft drops below 100 feet, an innovative camera package, known as “EagleCam,” built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, will fall away and attempt to photograph the lander’s final descent from the side. NASA cameras on board the spacecraft will photograph the ground directly below.
By the time Odysseus reaches an altitude of about 33 feet above the surface, the main engine was to have throttled down to the planned landing velocity of about 2.2 mph — walking speed for senior citizens.
Touchdown near a crater known as Malapert A is expected at 5:30 p.m., one week after launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
Video from the lander’s on-board cameras and the EagleCam cannot be transmitted back to Earth in real time, but Intuitive Machines’ engineers at the company’s Nova Control center in Houston say they should be able to verify touchdown within about 15 seconds. The first pictures are expected within a half hour or so.
A successful lunar landing would mark the first touchdown by a U.S.-built spacecraft since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and the first ever by a privately-built spacecraft.
Pittsburg-based Astrobotic hoped to claim that honor last month with its Peregrine lander, but the mission was derailed by a ruptured propellant tank shortly after launch Jan. 9. Two earlier private moon ventures, one by Israel and the other by Japan, also ended in failure.
Only the governments of the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan have successfully put landers on the surface of the moon, and Japan’s “SLIM” lander was only partially successful, tipping over on touchdown Jan. 19.
Peregrine and Odysseus were both funded in part by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS (pronounced CLIPS), designed to encourage private industry to develop transportation capabilities that NASA can then use to transport payloads to the moon.
The agency’s goal is to help kickstart development of new technologies and to collect data that will be needed by Artemis astronauts planning to land near the moon’s south pole later this decade.
NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million for its part in the Peregrine mission and another $129 million for the Odysseus instruments and transportation to the moon.
What’s on board the Odysseus moon lander?
Odysseus was equipped with six NASA instruments and another six commercial payloads, including small moon sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons, proof-of-concept cloud storage technology, Columbia Sportswear insulation blankets and a small astronomical telescope.
Among the NASA experiments: an instrument to study the charged particle environment at the moon’s surface, another designed to test navigation technologies and the downward-facing cameras designed to photograph how the lander’s engine exhaust disrupts the soil at the landing site.
Also on board: an innovative sensor using radio waves to accurately determine how much cryogenic propellant is left in a tank in the weightless environment of space, technology expected to prove useful for downstream moon missions and other deep space voyages.
Odysseus and its instruments are expected to operate on the surface for about a week, until the sun sets at the landing site. At that point, the lander’s solar cells will no longer be able to generate power and the spacecraft will shut down. Odysseus was not designed to survive the ultra-cold lunar night.
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RNC committee approves Trump-influenced 2024 GOP platform with softened abortion language
The Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform, approved by its platform committee and released Monday, is influenced heavily by presumptive presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, and in a change from prior years, it backs the rights of states to make their own abortion laws.
The 2016 RNC platform mentioned the word “abortion” 35 times and backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion: “[W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the RNC’s 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”
The Republican Party did not release a platform in 2020. And the 2024 platform only mentions the word once.
“We proudly stand for families and life,” the 2024 platform says. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process,” but it goes on to say, “the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.”
The platform has been initially approved by the RNC committee, but is expected to go to a full vote Tuesday and be officially approved the first day of the Republican National Convention next week.
It also goes on to express opposition to late-term abortion and support for “policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”
Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom coalition, previously expressed concerns about removing abortion language, but he appeared to fall in line and back the GOP platform as released.
“The Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment,” Reed said in a statement. “That language has been in the GOP platform for 40 years and reflects the view of Ronald Reagan. While aspirational, it applies to both the states and the federal government. The proposed ban on late-term abortion also implies federal as well as state action. It is an unapologetically pro-life position, and we are grateful to President Trump and the Republican Party for standing for life.”
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-chair Lara Trump focused on the economy and the border in their statement on the platform.
“Only President Trump can restore our economy, restore our southern border, and restore America’s standing in the world,” the two RNC leaders said in a joint statement. “His 2024 Republican Party Platform is a bold roadmap that will undo the devastating damage that Joe Biden’s far-left policies have done to this country, power President Trump to a historic victory in November, and Make America Great Again.”
The platform is titled, “2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again!” It bears clear signs of the former president’s influence, emphasizing enforcing border security and stopping the “migrant crime epidemic.” The platform includes a goal to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
The platform also proposes building a “great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country.”
Trump and his campaign have also adopted a new proposal in recent months — eliminating taxes on tips. Trump mentions it frequently at rallies, and it appears in the RNC 2024 platform, along with a promise to end inflation, which has been easing.
The GOP also states in the platform that there will be no cuts to Social Security or Medicare and no changes to the retirement age. It also says that the push for electric vehicles should be canceled and regulations should be cut. And it calls for “same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship” as means to “secure our elections.”
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