The robotic Nova-C lander, Odysseus, developed by Intuitive Machines landed safely near the South Pole of the moon on Feb. 22, becoming the first privately developed spacecraft to touch down on the moon and the first American spacecraft to do so in more than half a century.
The IM-1 mission carried six NASA payloads through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program under a task order. The payloads emphasized technology demonstrations, including a navigation Doppler lidar, a navigation beacon, a radiofrequency fuel tank gauge, a camera to study dust plumes kicked up by the lander’s engine, a laser retroreflector and a radioastronomy instrument.
IM-1 also carried six non-NASA payloads. Columbia Sportswear provided material identical to what it uses on some of its jackets to test its use as insulation for a propellant tank. Two companies, Galactic Legacy Labs and Lonestar Data Holdings, flew data archives on the lander. The International Lunar Observatory Association flew two small astronomical cameras. Artist Jeff Koons provided an artwork called “Moon Phases” installed on the lander.
The most ambitious of the non-NASA payloads was EagleCam, built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. EagleCam was designed to be ejected from the lander during its final descent, reaching the surface ahead of the lander and taking images of the lander’s touchdown.
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