A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:05 a.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. As a part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis marketing campaign, Intuitive Machines’ first lunar mission will carry NASA science and industrial payloads to the Moon to review plume-surface interactions, house climate/lunar floor interactions, radio astronomy, precision touchdown applied sciences, and a communication and navigation node for future autonomous navigation applied sciences.
