What time is SpaceX’s IM-1 private moon lander launch for Intuitive Machines on Feb. 15? – Space.com

Update for Feb. 14: SpaceX is now aiming to launch the IM-1 moon lander mission for Intuitive Machines no earlier than Thursday, Feb. 15, due to a liquid methane temperature issue during preparations to fuel the Odysseus lander. You can read our story and see the updated times for the mission below.

SpaceX will launch a privately built lunar lander to the moon for the company Intuitive Machines on Feb. 15, and if you want to know where and when it will lift off, we've got you covered.

The IM-1 mission, as it's called, will launch Intuitive Machines' first Nova-C spacecraft to the moon from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in a predawn flight atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff is scheduled for 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 GMT).

If all goes well, the Nova-C lander (Intuitive Machines has named it Odysseus) is expected to land on the moon on Feb. 22 to deliver experiments for NASA and commercial customers to the lunar surface under a $118 million contract with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Here's how and when to watch it launch.

Currently, SpaceX and Intuitive Machines plan to launch the Odysseus lander early Thursday, Feb. 15, from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Liftoff is set for 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 GMT).

SpaceX must launch the IM-1 mission during a three-day window this week, which opens on Feb. 14, in order for the Odysseus lander to reach its landing day target of Feb. 22, NASA and Intuitive Machines officials have said. SpaceX originally hoped to launch the mission in January but had to delay the flight after a ripple of other SpaceX launch delays due to bad weather.

An attempt to launch the mission on Feb. 14 at the start of the IM-1 launch window was delayed due to off-nominal methane fuel temperatures ahead of the loading process for the Odysseus moon lander, SpaceX has said.

Yes, you'll be able to watch SpaceX's IM-1 launch for Intuitive Machines and NASA online for free in one of several livestreams. Our guide on how to watch SpaceX launch the IM-1 moon lander has everything you need to know.

NASA will provide a livestream of the launch beginning at 12:20 a.m. EST (0520 GMT) that will be broadcast on NASA TV, the agency's NASA+ streaming channel and its website.

SpaceX will also provide a launch webcast on its X account (formerly Twitter), starting at least 45 minutes before liftoff.

Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines will host the same NASA webcast on its own IM-1 mission website during the launch webcast. Space.com will host a simulcast of NASA's webcast on our homepage, the top of this page and likely our YouTube channel.

During the launch webcast, viewers will be able to see SpaceX's final minutes of prelaunch preparation for the Falcon 9 rocket, which typically includes final fueling for launch. About eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage will return to Earth and land at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1 at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, an event that will also be webcast. IM-1 will mark the 18th flight for the mission's Falcon 9 first stage.

Intuitive Machines' IM-1 mission will send the Nova-C lander Odysseus to the moon on a 16-day mission that, if successful, will mark the first-ever private landing on the moon and the first U.S. landing on the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

If SpaceX launches the Odysseus lander on time, Intuitive Machines' mission plan calls for a nine-day trip to the moon, followed by a seven-day stay on the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines aims to land the Odysseus spacecraft in Malapert A, a satellite crater of the nearly 43-mile-wide (69 kilometers) Malapert Crater near the moon's south pole.

The mission will end when the two-week long lunar night begins, according to a mission overview.

It is unclear exactly how long NASA and SpaceX will livestream the IM-1 mission's flight after launch, but the webcast is expected to run through at least the landing of the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage eight minutes after liftoff. SpaceX and NASA may opt to provide live coverage through spacecraft separation, so we'll have to wait and see.

If SpaceX is unable to launch the IM-1 mission on Feb. 15, the company will have at least one more chances this week, depending on the reason for a delay.

SpaceX, NASA and Intuitive Machines have a three-day window that includes launch opportunities on Feb. 14, Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 before SpaceX would have to stand down until some time in March, according to Trent Martin, vice president of lunar access for Intuitive Machines. A launch on Feb. 15 would take place at 1:05 a.m. EST (0605 GMT), according to SpaceX. A potential delay to Feb. 16 could likely shift slightly later in the 1 a.m. hour.

Regardless of which day IM-1 launches during this week's window, the Odysseus lander would still be on target for a Feb. 22 moon landing, Martin added.

"If we were to push into the March window, it is also a three-day window, and we're coordinating with SpaceX and that as well," Martin told reporters in a Jan. 31 briefing.

Complicating the launch options for IM-1 is NASA's Crew-8 astronaut mission, which SpaceX is also scheduled to launch from KSC's Pad 39A this month. That mission, which will send four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on a Crew Dragon spacecraft, was originally scheduled to launch on Feb. 22.

"Right now, we're working towards the 22nd, with the possibility of going later depending what happens with IM," NASA associate administrator Jim Free told reporters in a Feb. 5 press conference, referring to the Crew-8 mission.

On Tuesday (Feb. 13), NASA and SpaceX delayed the Crew-8 launch to Feb. 28.

Editor's note: This story was update at 12:30 am ET on Feb. 14 to include the new launch date and time due to a SpaceX delay.

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What time is SpaceX's IM-1 private moon lander launch for Intuitive Machines on Feb. 15? - Space.com

Man captures moment he speaks to astronaut after making contact with space station using homemade device – UNILAD

A man managed to contact the International Space Station (ISS) using his own radio equipment at home.

Ham radio enthusiast Doug managed to actually speak to the astronauts on the ISS as it passed overhead in July 2023.

Of all the ham radio contacts you could make, it doesn't get much cooler than that.

Doug revealed that he had wanted to talk to an astronaut for some time, and had previously attempted it.

And now he has finally got his wish, speaking to NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg.

In the video, shared to his YouTube page, Doug can be seen saying his call sign: Kilo Bravo 8 Mike, a number of times before he was finally successful.

Hoburg then replies: Kilo Bravo 8 Mike, NA1SS got you loud and clear aboard the Space Station, welcome aboard.

Underneath his video, Doug wrote: "I've made numerous voice and APRS [Automatic Packet Reporting System] contacts over the FM satellites and the ISS repeater.

"But I've always wanted to talk to an astronaut. Over the Memorial Day weekend I finally made that contact. I made contact with the ISS and talked to Woody Hoburg. What a thrill."

Many astronauts on the ISS also have ham radio licences, and often host scheduled contact sessions with people back on Earth.

NASA, ESA, CSA, and Roscosmos all participate in Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, a program which encourages children to reach out to the station to encourage interest in science.

But occasionally amateur operators do manage to make it through and speak to the astronauts using their own equipment.

If you hadn't already guessed, this is no easy feat to carry out. You can't just start spinning the dials on any old radio and hope for the best.

In fact, it's only really possible when the ISS is in certain positions, so even if you have equipment capable of reaching it you'll have to wait for it to pass overhead.

It's no use trying to contact from the US when the ISS is over Australia.

Ham radio operator Matt Payne and his daughter Isabella also managed to contact the ISS, chatting to astronaut Kjell Lindgren in August 2022.

Matt told IFLScience: It's pretty rare to speak to an astronaut outside of a scheduled educational contact. There are several factors that need to align for it to happen.

He added: The ISS must be passing within LOS [Line Of Sight]... at a time that coincides with an astronauts down time, as in they must not be working doing an official scheduled task.

"There must be an astronaut who is actively using the Amateur Radio equipment to make unscheduled contacts."

That's a pretty long shot, but clearly it does sometimes work out!

See the article here:

Man captures moment he speaks to astronaut after making contact with space station using homemade device - UNILAD

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program: Where Future Tech is Developed – Popular Mechanics

What will the future of

The NIAC program has a relatively tiny budget, just a few million dollars per year. Its a drop in the bucket compared to NASAs entire expenditure (which is itself just a fraction of a percent of the entire federal budget). But the purpose of NIAC isnt to build the next rocket or design the next mission. Its here to look 20, 30, 40 years into the future, and provide seed funding to anyone with a crazy, but still plausible, idea that can radically change spaceflight as we know it.

If you want a peek into the future of humanity in space, then NIAC is your window. (Full disclosure: I have served in NIAC review committees for several years, and recently joined the external advisory council. So if this reads like Im a big fan of the program, its because I am.)

As an example of the game-changing possibilities NIAC investigates, take FLUTE, the fluidic telescope. The largest telescope flown into space is the James Webb, a massive array with a width of 6.6 meters (21.7 feet). That sounds impressive (and it is), but ground-based telescopes dwarf itthe largest one stretches more than 30 meters (98.4 feet) across. And with telescopes, you care more about the total surface area than the diameter. Placed on Earth, the James Webb would be a decent, but not groundbreaking or world-class, telescope.

But space offers so many advantages for astronomers. It gets you away from light pollution, and, more importantly, from the distorting effects of Earths atmosphere. Thats why the James Webb is able to deliver such spectacular results. However, the telescope was also the most expensive scientific mission ever flown into space, because that large of a mirror couldnt fit within existing rockets. The engineers behind the James Webb devised a clever origami-like folding mechanism, something that had never been tried before with a telescope.

The FLUTE telescope would have a 50-meter (164-foot), unsegmented primary mirror based on fluid shaping in microgravity.

In astronomy, bigger is always better. Larger mirrors allow us to see further into the reaches of the distant universe, and they give better resolution of closer objects. If we want to go bigger, we dont have a lot of options unless we get clever. The FLUTE design envisions a radical new kind of telescope mirror, one made from liquid. The idea is to launch the observatory with tanks of some highly reflective compound. Once in space, the telescope would unfurl its support beams and begin rotating, allowing its own spin to stabilize the liquid in the shape of a mirror. The best part is that the only design limit is how much liquid you can pack on board. The reference design is for a jaw-dropping, 50-meter (164-foot) telescope, which would make the James Webb look like a hobbyists toy in comparison.

If astronomy isnt your main focus, the creative people NIAC funds have some other ideas for you, like utilizing fungi to build habitats on Mars. Thats right: fungi. Known as mycotecture, the projects aim is to solve one of the most basic problems facing any future Martian mission: building structures.

We take our building materials for granted. Cement, bricks, wood, plaster, drywall, all of it is readily accessible and relatively cheap. When you want to build something on Earth, you just grab your tools, load up your materials, and go for it. But on Mars there is no wood, no drywall, no plaster, no bricks. Just a lot of red dust and pavement-like desert floor, all at temperatures usually well below freezing. For the near term, NASA and other space agencies envision bringing all our building materials along with us for the ride, which increases the cost and complexity of any crewed mission to the Red Planet.

Building material wouldnt be made of mushrooms, but from specialized strains of fungi that grow tight, interwoven webs of material. This would yield cheap and effective Martian habitats.

But what if we could build our habitats directly on Mars? Unfortunately, the Martian soil isnt a great building material on its own, and its not like well have easy access to quarries. Enter the radical NIAC idea to use fungi instead. In this project, the researchers are developing specialized strains of fungi that grow tight, interwoven webs of material. The hope is that we just need to bring along the basic foodstuffs; we can grow the walls, ceilings, and even plumbing pipes that will enable the rapid infrastructure expansion needed to maintain a long-term presence on Mars.

Even if you just want to stay warm and cozy on planet Earth, NIAC is funding a project to help youliterally to save your life from a catastrophic asteroid impact. Simply called PI, the plan is to avert disaster by blowing up an asteroid before it ever reaches our planet.

Earth is constantly under cosmic bombardment. Thankfully, most of the material crossing our orbit is small, making no more than a delightful meteor shower. About every year or so, however, a large enough rock impacts our atmosphere with a velocity of 5070,000 mph. That releases enough pure kinetic energy to be the equivalent of a nuclear weapon, but usually these detonate safely in the atmosphere over some random patch of ocean. And then there are the big ones, like the asteroids that ended the reign of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. Those come every few million years, and its been a while since the last one.

The PI approach would use energy transfer to pulverize very large asteroids so that their pieces burn up in Earths atmosphere.

If we are to last as a species into the long term, then we need to protect ourselves. One way will be to settle on other worlds, giving us backup options. But even if we leave Earth, were still going to be nostalgic for it, and well probably want to prevent large space rocks from messing up the place.

Recently, NASA demonstrated the DART mission, which nudged the orbit of an asteroid. This can work for planetary defense, but only if we see the asteroid from far enough away that we can effectively deflect it. With PI, however, the game plan is different. The idea is to send a swarm of small, hypervelocity impactors straight for an incoming asteroid. Instead of trying to nudge it off course, the colliding objects would burrow themselves into the body of the asteroid, tearing it to shreds.

The resulting fragments would still be headed toward Earth, but our atmosphere is great at taking a punch. If we get the pieces small enough, we can all celebrate as we enjoy the fireworks in the sky.

All of these ideas, along with the dozens of other projects NIAC funds, are only in their initial stages of development, and have no guarantee of success. In fact, most of these projects will not pan out. But, if we want to take big swings, were going to have to accept some misses, because when we hit, we really hit! Take the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars, which is currently setting records and laying the groundwork for an entirely new class of planetary exploration; NIAC inspired that project.

The best part: anyone can apply, from an established player in the space industry to a garage tinkerer. If you have an idea for the future, and you have a plausible path to getting there, then NIAC wants to hear from you. Its the only way we can make the science fiction dreams of the future become reality.

Paul M. Sutter is a science educator and a theoretical cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and the author of How to Die in Space: A Journey Through Dangerous Astrophysical Phenomena and Your Place in the Universe: Understanding Our Big, Messy Existence. Sutter is also the host of various science programs, and hes on social media. Check out his Ask a Spaceman podcast and his YouTube page.

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NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program: Where Future Tech is Developed - Popular Mechanics