Launch Ready: Intuitive Machines IM-1 Moon Lander | SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

Launch Ready: Intuitive Machines IM-1 Moon Lander | SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is being launched in the background while the IM-1 robotic Moon lander awaits launch on another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the foreground at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Intuitive Machines IM-1 robotic Moon lander is targeted for launch no earlier than 1:05 a.m. ET, Thursday, February 15, 2024, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket via Launch Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral, Florida. If all goes well, IM-1 will become the first American spacecraft to set down softly on the Moon’s surface since the NASA Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972.

China's Chang'e 3 Mission, the first Chinese landing on the Moon in 2013, was the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976.

In 2023, after the Chandrayaan-3 Lander successfully soft-landed on the Moon, India became the fourth country, after the United States, Russia and China, to accomplish this.

NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative allows NASA to send science investigations and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface. Under Artemis, NASA will study more of the Moon than ever before, and CLPS will demonstrate how NASA is working with commercial companies to achieve robotic lunar exploration.

Learn more about CLPS:

https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-lunar-payload-services

Image Credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)

Capture Date: 14, 2024

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