The rocket’s Merlin engine runs on kerosene and liquid oxygen.
Florida:
The planned launch of a robotic lunar lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was canceled less than two hours before Wednesday’s launch time and delayed by at least a day, launch contractor SpaceX said late Tuesday.
SpaceX, the private rocket and satellite company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, said on the social media platform X that the launch team “abandoned tonight’s attempt” due to abnormal methane temperatures before loading.
The precise function of methane and its impact on the normal functioning of the Falcon 9 rocket were not immediately explained. The rocket’s Merlin engine runs on kerosene and liquid oxygen.
The Intuitive Machines flight was originally scheduled to take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 12:57 pm ET on Wednesday, but the decision was made to cancel the flight approximately 75 minutes before launch time.
SpaceX said it will target the launch of its next unmanned mission, which is scheduled for 1:05 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, known as Odysseus, remains poised atop a Falcon 9 rocket on a mission designed to carry the most space since the last Apollo moon landing half a century ago It was the first U.S. lunar landing since the mission and the first landing of a private aircraft.
The feat also marks the first trip to the lunar surface for NASA’s Artemis lunar program, as the United States races to return astronauts to Earth before China can land its own manned spacecraft on Earth’s natural satellite.
A month ago, another private company’s lunar lander, Astrobotic Technology, encountered a propulsion system leak on its way to the moon shortly after it was launched into orbit on January 8 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket. First flight.
The failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, also on a NASA mission, marked the third time a private company has failed to achieve a “soft landing” on the lunar surface, following failed efforts by Israeli and Japanese companies.
The accidents illustrate the risks NASA faces as it relies more heavily on the commercial sector than in the past to achieve its space goals.
The latest IM-1 flight, considered an Intuitive Machine mission, is thought to have carried six NASA instrument payloads designed to collect data on the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s Artemis mission, which has been the first since 1972 Send astronauts back to the moon for the first time.
If the four-legged Odysseus lander lifts off this week, it is scheduled to arrive at its destination on February 22 and land in the Marapet A crater near the moon’s south pole.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
