The launch of the “Nova-C” lunar lander from the US company Intuitive Machines has been postponed. SpaceX and the space agency NASA announced this on Wednesday night (local time). The new start date is now scheduled for Thursday morning (local time). The temperatures of the methane fuel deviated from the norm, according to a statement from NASA. The lander was scheduled to lift off from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida on Wednesday using a “Falcon 9” rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX.
After several failed attempts, the US company Intuitive Machines wants to tackle the goal of the first commercial moon landing. It would be the first – albeit unmanned – US moon landing since the Apollo missions over 50 years ago and the first commercial landing on Earth’s satellite in space history. The experiment is part of NASA’s “CLPS” (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. With this program, the US space agency wants to collect as much knowledge as possible on its own way back to the moon comparatively cheaply and efficiently by awarding contracts for lunar landings to private companies and working with them.
The “Nova-C” lander, nicknamed “Odysseus,” is about the size of an old-fashioned British phone booth, has aluminum legs, weighs around 700 kilograms and can carry around 130 kilograms of cargo. NASA has occupied a large part of it with research equipment and other things, while commercial companies have secured the rest for their projects.
After a successful touchdown, the lander would be operational for approximately seven days, according to its manufacturers. However, moon landings are considered to be technically extremely demanding – and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned landings have turned out differently than hoped.
