Mission record

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Nova-C IM-2 & Others

Falcon 9· Launch Complex 39A· Success
Trajectory & orbital insertion
Ascent path is a representation — true ascent telemetry isn’t public.
Provider
SpaceX
Provider type
Commercial
Orbit
LO
Mission type
Lunar Exploration
Launch site
United States of America
Date
Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:16:30 GMT
Orbital launch #
#6887 ever
Go probability
99%

Mission

This is the second mission of Nova-C lunar lander developed and built by Intuitive Machines. This time it carries a NASA payload called PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1), which is to be the first demonstration of in-situ resource utilization on the Moon. PRIME-1 consists of two instruments: TRIDENT drill and Msolo mass spectrometer. Also on board are: * Lunar Trailblazer, a small (class D) lunar orbiter, part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, that will detect and map water on the lunar surface to determine how its form, abundance, and location relate to geology. Its mission is to aid in the understanding of lunar water and the Moon's water cycle. * Odin, a spacecraft for AstroForge, a company that plans to mine asteroid resources. Odin intends to head into deep space to observe near-Earth asteroid 2022 OB5 in preparation for their first retrieval mission. Odin will fly by the asteroid at a distance of about 1 kilometer, arriving 11 months after launch. * CHIMERA GEO 1, a transfer spacecraft by Epic Aerospace to a geostationary orbit, with the aim of covering an orbital position. For this launch, CHIMERA-GEO is carrying an unidentified 16U cubesat manifested by Exolaunch.

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