The Nova C spacecraft, developed by Intuitive Machines, will become the first private spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of the Moon.
Image: Intuitive Machines
Nova-C is the name given to the lunar module that will land on the Moon in the coming weeks. If successful, it will be the first private mission to do so. (You may be interested in: Record: Scientists have discovered the oldest radio burst ever captured)
American company intuitive machines, For several years, it has been advancing space research to develop a lunar module that can successfully land on the Moon.
More than two months ago, on August 21, they reported that Nova-C and the lunar landing system (VR 3500) were fully assembled and ready for liftoff.
The ship has a hexagonal shape, 4 meters high and 1.57 meters wide. In addition, it has six landing legs and weighs 1,900 kilograms. At the time of launch, it will be integrated into Falcon 9, a launch vehicle from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. (We recommend: NASA reports that 50 near-Earth asteroids have not yet been found)
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It will also have solar panels on its sides and top. These devices have the ability to produce 200 watts of power and a storage battery that allows them to operate for approximately 14 Earth days under sunlight.
NASA incorporated several artifacts as part of the mission’s payload, which it hopes will be used for future landings on the Moon. Among them are a reflective laser, a high-precision navigation device, stereo cameras suitable for working on the lunar surface, and a radio wave monitor. In total, the mission is expected to consist of five NASA flights and four commercial flights.
According to NASA, the mission is scheduled to launch during the second half of November, after Wednesday the 15th of this month, from Cape Canaveral in the state of Florida in the United States, the place where that country’s space operations are concentrated. (You can also read: They discovered a condensation jet on Jupiter moving faster than a hurricane)
It is expected that within the next few days the exact date and time of the take-off will be known, after obtaining all permits and modifications in air and sea traffic in the area of influence, whether to take off or recover the Falcon 9 unit. It will separate after Nova-C leaves the Earth.
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