International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA Hawai’i) congratulates Intuitive Machines for the incredible accomplishment of an independent enterprise successfully soft landing its IM-1 Nova-C Odysseus lunar lander carrying NASA and commercial payloads in the Moon South Pole region on 22 February 2024 at 17:24 CST.
ILOA is honored to be part of the first USA landing on the Moon in the 21st Century, and to have had its first precursor instruments land near the Moon South Pole. ILOA is working toward the long-term goal of permanent astronomy from the Moon with our future ILO-1 lunar observatory and to share images of the Milky Way Galaxy Stars with the 8 Billion people of Earth.
With today’s official press conference, Intuitive Machines and NASA announced the presumed off-nominal landing orientation of Odysseus which has our two ILO-X precursor imagers mounted near the top of the lander.
During the transit period and while in lunar orbit, our instruments went through checkout periods in which they successfully took low-resolution thumbnail images and reported telemetry, temperature and other data.
ILOA’s first low-resolution thumbnail (above) is from the ILO-X wide field-of-view, fish-eye imager showing deep space, the Sun and part of the Nova-C spacecraft landing legs.
Our international dedicated ILOA team, including the ILO-X payload developer Canadensys Aerospace, are working hard and remain hopeful to receive other images from the Moon surface!
Prior to landing, we believe one or both of our instruments may have also taken an image of the Moon, which we hope to be able to receive in the coming days.
We remain cautiously optimistic that ILO-X and our fellow passenger payloads aboard Intuitive Machines’ lander are able to gather as much science and data as possible during this time, Ad Astra Per Aspera!
About ILOA: ILOA is an interglobal enterprise incorporated in Hawaii as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2007 to help realize the multifunctional ILO for long-term astronomy, science and exploration at the Moon South Pole, and to participate in human lunar base build-out - with Aloha.
For Inquires, Media Questions Please Contact:
ILOA Director Steve Durst
info@iloa.org
+1-808-885-3474