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Houston company aims to return America to moon’s surface with robot lander
SpaceX readied a Falcon 9 rocket for launch early Wednesday to send a commercially built robotic lander to the moon, the first targeting touchdown near the lunar south pole where NASA’s Artemis astronauts plan to walk about in a few years.
The flight comes just five weeks after another U.S. company’s attempt to land a privately built spacecraft on the moon ended in failure, the third such commercial setback in a row.
SpaceX
The fourth such mission is set for liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center at 12:57 a.m. EST Wednesday.
If all goes well, the Odysseus lander, nicknamed “Odie,” will land Feb. 22 about 186 miles from the moon’s south pole using a high-power 3D-printed main engine burning liquid oxygen and methane propellants, a first for a deep space mission.
SpaceX carried out extensive modifications to cool and route the cryogenic propellants into the Falcon 9’s nose fairing and then into the lander’s tanks during the rocket’s countdown. Dress rehearsals were staged late last week to verify the system would work as required.
“SpaceX is tremendously proud to be part of this historic private mission to the moon,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, a former NASA manager who now works for SpaceX. “It’s not trivial to load liquid oxygen and liquid methane into the vehicle. We modified the second stage of Falcon to accommodate that. … The Falcon 9 rocket is ready to go fly.”
The flight follows the ill-fated Jan. 8 launch of another commercial moon lander — Peregrine — built by Pittsburg-based Astrobotic that suffered a propulsion system malfunction shortly after takeoff. The mishap derailed what would have been the first U.S. moon landing since the Apollo program’s final flight more than 50 years ago.
Intuitive Machines
Odysseus-builder Intuitive Machines of Houston now hopes to claim that honor.
“It is a profoundly humbling moment for all of us at Intuitive Machines,” said Trent Martin, the company’s space systems vice president. “The opportunity to return the United States to the moon for the first time since 1972 is a feat of engineering that demands a hunger to explore.”
“We’re not overlooking the challenges that lie ahead,” Martin added. “Any venture into uncharted territory carries risk, yet this willingness to embrace the risk and push beyond our comfort zones propels us forward and drives innovation. … Now let’s go make history.”
Odysseus carries six NASA instruments and another six commercial payloads, including sculptures, proof-of-concept cloud storage technology, an astronomical telescope and a student-built camera package that will drop to the surface ahead of the lander to photograph its final descent.
Among the NASA experiments is an instrument to study the charged particle environment at the moon’s surface, another that will test navigation technologies and downward-facing stereo cameras designed to photograph how the lander’s engine exhaust disrupts the soil at the landing site.
Also on board: an innovative sensor that will use radio waves to accurately determine how much cryogenic propellant is left in a tank in the weightless environment of space, technology that is expected to prove useful for downstream moon missions and other deep space voyages.
SpaceX
The Falcon 9 is expected to release the lander on a trajectory to the moon. But getting into lunar orbit and down to the surface will be up to Odysseus and the Intuitive Machines flight control team in Houston.
A key milestone is expected 18 hours after launch when the lander’s main engine is test-fired, or commissioned, to help controllers calibrate its performance in space. After that, up to three trajectory correction maneuvers are planned to fine-tune its course to the moon.
It will take Odysseus eight days to reach its target. Flying behind the moon and out of contact with flight controllers, the lander’s main engine will have to fire for seven minutes “in the blind” to put the craft into a 62-mile-high circular orbit carrying it over the landing site at 80 degrees south latitude.
During 12 trips around the moon, flight controllers will check out the lander’s systems before beginning the final descent to relatively flat terrain near a crater known as Malapert A. To ensure a safe landing, the main engine will have to reduce the spacecraft’s velocity by some 4,000 mph.
The descent will begin with a small rocket firing 75 minutes before touchdown to drop the low point of the orbit to an altitude of about 6 miles. The spacecraft then will coast for about an hour before the engine re-ignites to begin the powered descent to the surface.
Descending through an altitude of about 18 miles, Odysseus will flip from a horizontal to a vertical orientation, dropping at just under 4 mph. As the spacecraft drops below 100 feet, the “EagleCam” imaging system, built by students at Embry-Riddle University, will fall away and attempt to photograph the lander’s final descent from the side.
By the time Odysseus reaches 33 feet above the surface, the main engine will have throttled down to the planned landing velocity of just 2.2 mph — walking speed for senior citizens.
Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines says it will take flight controllers about 15 seconds to verify touchdown. Data recorded during the descent, including photos from the lander’s plume observation cameras and the deployed EagleCam, will be relayed back to Earth later.
Odysseus and its experiments are expected to operate for about a week before the sun sets at the landing site, cutting off solar power. The spacecraft is not designed to survive the extremely low temperatures of the two-week lunar night.
“Landing on the moon is really difficult to do,” said Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration. “I think people have seen different attempts at that over the last year, and it’s really tough. There’s no air on the moon, you can’t use parachutes, you have to use rockets (to decelerate) all the way down.”
“Intuitive Machines have picked some really innovative techniques that they’re (using) in their propulsion system,” Kearns said. “They’ve got some really neat things they’re going to demonstrate. That means they’re doing a lot of things for the first time.”
Only the U.S., Russia, China, India and Japan have successfully put landers on the surface of the moon, and Japan’s membership in that exclusive club comes with an asterisk: its “SLIM” lander tipped over on touchdown Jan. 19 and failed to achieve all of the mission’s objectives.
Three privately funded moon landers were launched between 2019 and this past January, one from an Israeli non-profit, one from a Japanese company and Astrobotic’s Peregrine. All three failed.
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 the 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.
The agency spent about $108 million for its part in the Peregrine mission and another $129 million for the Odysseus instruments and transportation to the moon.
“These aren’t NASA missions, they’re commercial missions,” said Susan Lederer, CLPS project scientist at the Johnson Space Center. “These commercial companies will be bringing our instruments along for the ride, enabling our investigations by providing power, data and [communications] to us.
“With the commercial industry comes a competitive environment, which means that our investment up front ultimately gets far more for far less. So instead of one mission in a decade, it allows for more like 10 commercial missions to the moon in a decade.”
But the lower cost of CLPS mission brings with it higher risks. Lessons learned from Peregrine will be funneled into the development of the company’s next lander, scheduled for launch late this year, and other CLPS missions.
“We’ll learn from what doesn’t work, testing many technologies, conducting experiments at a lower cost and significantly faster than traditional NASA mission,” Lederer said. “This will allow us to prepare for Artemis more efficiently.”
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Sen. Duckworth says Trump defense secretary pick is “flat-out wrong” about women in combat roles
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said Sunday that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary is “flat-out wrong” in his view that women should not serve in the military in combat roles.
“Our military could not go to war without the women who wear this uniform,” Duckworth said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “And frankly, America’s daughters are just as capable of defending liberty and freedom as her sons.”
Trump tapped Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as his pick to head the Defense Department earlier this month. The 44-year-old has drawn criticism for his stance on women in combat roles, along with his level of experience.
Duckworth, who in 2004 deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot and sustained severe injuries when her helicopter was hit by an RPG, outlined that women who serve in combat roles have met the same standards as men, passing rigorous testing. She said Hegseth’s position “just shows his lack of understanding of where our military is,” while arguing that he’s “inordinately unqualified for the position.”
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“Our military could not go to war without the 220,000-plus women who serve in uniform,” Duckworth said. She added that having women in the military “does make us more effective, does make us more lethal.”
Hegseth has also drawn scrutiny amid recently unearthed details about an investigation into an alleged sexual assault in 2017. Hegseth denies the allegation and characterized the incident as a consensual encounter. The Monterey County district attorney’s office declined to file charges as none were “supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” His lawyer has acknowledged that Hegseth paid a confidential financial settlement to the woman out of concern that the allegation would jeopardize his employment.
Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who serves on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, said it’s “really troubling” that Trump would nominate someone who “has admitted that he’s paid off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him.”
“This is not the kind of person you want to lead the Department of Defense,” she added.
The comments come after Trump announced a slew of picks for top posts in his administration in recent days. Meanwhile, one pick — former Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general — has already withdrawn his name from consideration after he faced intense scrutiny amid a House Ethics Committee investigation and a tenuous path to Senate confirmation.
While Duckworth acknowledged that she’s glad her Senate Republicans “held the line” on Gaetz and also elected Sen. John Thune as leader over a candidate favored by many in Trump’s orbit, she said she’s “deeply concerned” her Republican colleagues will green light Trump’s nominees.
“From what I’m hearing from my Republican colleagues on everything from defense secretary to other posts, it sounds like they are ready to roll over for Mr. Trump,” Duckworth said.
But Duckworth didn’t rule out supporting some of the nominees herself during the Senate confirmation process, pledged to evaluate each candidate based on their ability to do the job, and their willingness to put the needs of the American people before “a retribution campaign for Mr. Trump.”
Meanwhile, a CBS News poll released on Sunday found that 33% of Americans say Hegseth is a “good choice” for defense secretary, including 64% of Trump voters. But 39% of Americans said they hadn’t heard enough yet about the pick. More broadly, Americans generally say they want Trump to appoint people who’ll speak their minds and who have experience in the field or agency they’ll run.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who also appeared on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said he believes that Hegseth can run the massive Defense Department, despite his lack of experience managing a large organization. Though he did not address Hegseth’s comments about women in combat roles, Paul said he believes the “vast majority of people” support leaders who are picked based on merit, citing Hegseth’s criticism of the Pentagon for what he says has been a move away from merit-based hiring and toward hiring based on “racial characteristics.”
Hezbollah fired at least 185 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday, wounding seven people in the militant group’s heaviest barrage in several days, in response to deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut while negotiators pressed on with cease-fire efforts to halt the war.
Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center killed one soldier and wounded 18 others on the southwestern coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, Lebanon’s military said. Israel’s military expressed regret and said the strike occurred in an area of combat against Hezbollah, adding that its operations are directed solely against the militants. The strike was under review.
Hussein Malla / AP
Israeli strikes have killed over 40 Lebanese troops since the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, even as Lebanon’s military has largely kept to the sidelines.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on U.S.-led cease-fire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.
“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.
The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.
Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.
Hezbollah fired a total of around 160 rockets and other projectiles into Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted, the Israeli military said.
Oded Balilty / AP
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they treated three other people in northern Israel, closer to the border, including a 60-year-old man in serious condition.
It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.
Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a cease-fire, and U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.
The European Union’s top diplomat called for more pressure on both Israel and Hezbollah to reach a deal, saying one was “pending with a final agreement from the Israeli government.”
Josep Borrell spoke Sunday after meeting with Mikati and Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been mediating with the group.
Borrell said the EU is ready to allocate 200 million euros ($208m) to assist the Lebanese military, which would deploy additional forces to the south.
The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of U.N. peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s army reflects the religious diversity of the country and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth says Pete Hegseth is “flat-out wrong” about women in combat roles
Sen. Duckworth says Trump defense secretary pick is “flat-out wrong” about women in combat roles
Israeli strike kills Lebanese soldier as Hezbollah fires at least 185 rockets at Israel
Sen. Tammy Duckworth says Pete Hegseth is “flat-out wrong” about women in combat roles
Sen. Duckworth says Trump defense secretary pick is “flat-out wrong” about women in combat roles