Some private companies have succeeded in space missions, others not so well. On February 14, the probe, developed by the company Intuitive Machines, should be launched on a rocket from SpaceX. The goal is to achieve controlled selenization.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch on February 14 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the rocket is expected to successfully deploy a module called Nova-C, developed by a Houston-based company called Intuitive Machines.

The company received $100 million from NASA to develop the lander and hopes to avoid the fate of Astrobotic, which failed to reach the moon with its Peregrine module, which had serious technical problems and burned up in the atmosphere.

The Intuitive Machines probe should travel for eight days, and a controlled selenization (soft landing) is scheduled for February 22. If for technical reasons or bad weather it is not possible to launch on the 14th, there are two more “windows” of time on the 15th and 16th of February respectively. If the launch does not take place within these three days, it will be repeated in March.

Controlled landings are complicated by the rocky terrain and the fact that parachutes cannot be used for deceleration because the Moon has no atmosphere. Maneuvers should occur automatically, with the help of engines.

Sources: phys.org, space.com