Intuitive Machines

So maybe we'll get a better result this time with the modifications as well.

OK, so now rewinding to a year ago, Lunar Trailblazer, if you remember, this was a secondary payload on Intuitive Machines' launch of their lander to the moon.

Now, we know that lander sort of got there and then fell over.

If you remember, Lunar Trailblazer, it kind of went silent.

So like they've got Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Tristan, et cetera.

So anyway, this has been acquired by Intuitive Machines.

So of course, Intuitive Machines, they are putting their landers on the moon.

They'd like to land them vertically, but regardless, they would like to be able to talk to them without having to buy time on NASA's deep space network.

Or maybe they think that they can sell this network capacity to other CLPS participants.

And these are sort of very simple missions for NASA.

They've basically given money to Astrobotic, Firefly Space, and Intuitive Machines.

So there's two landers from Astrobotic.

That's the small Peregrine landers.

And Firefly is going to fly another Blue Ghost.

Intuitive Machines is going to fly one of their Novas.

And essentially, the only thing that NASA, it sounds like the only thing that NASA is putting on these right now are like the scalps payload that looks at lunar surface plume interactions.

That's high speed cameras that looks how that interacts.

Regardless, yeah, this is a very cool paper.

And you'll notice, interestingly, that the data is published by Intuitive Machines, which now own Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, right? They're basically running the ground side processing because, of course, being able to do reconnaissance on the Moon is very much part of the kind of business of exploring the Moon.

finally uh impulse they got another 300 million dollars in funding worth mentioning the impulse of course is tom miller's venture you know spacex employee number one he's the guy that built the merlin and they are now selling of course the bits for the rest of the rocket which is interesting since they're talking about you know spacex sort of backing off and developing the falcon 9 but hey their spacecraft will fly on any rocket they are providing high energy upper stages to satellites that will fly on somebody else's spacecraft so yeah this is supposed to um this is another 300 million on top of 500 million to expand their capability looks like they're getting valued at about 4.2 billion dollars but yeah we are now already uh they've already sold out rideshare launches that they are planning to fly in 2028.

And they are interestingly on the national security space launch, like they're eligible to bid, even although they don't actually have a rocket, they only have an upper stage.

The lander tipped nose up after landing, but lived, transmitted, and opened a new chapter in the high-precision landing techniques the polar region demands.

In February 2024, an American private company, Intuitive Machines, landed Odysseus on the moon.

the first private spacecraft in history to touch down intact, and the site it chose was the south polar region, near Malapert Crater, at about 80 degrees south, that craft two tipped over at contact.

But the tip could not erase one fact.