Intuitive Machines Lunar Lander

Navigation engineers from KinetX Aerospace's Space Navigation and Flight Dynamics Practice were instrumental in the successful navigation of the first commercial landing of Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 Odysseus NOVA-C lander on the moon February 22, 2024 05:23 Central Standard Time. The KinetX team has been part of the IM Orbit Determination (OD) and Optical Navigation (OpNav) teams for over a year in support of IM-1, IM-2, and future missions.  The KinetX OpNav engineers helped calibrate the navigation cameras that resulted in stunning imagery of the Moon and autonomous image processing that exceeded pre-mission expectations.  The KinetX OD team was originally brought on in a supporting verification role but stepped up to in-line support of mission products that the Odysseus mission control team used for targeting maneuvers during transit, in lunar orbit, and for successful landing.  The contributions from the KinetX team will carry forward for precision landing on IM-2, IM-3 and beyond.

Dr. Tim Crain, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Intuitive Machines, sent the KinetX Flight Director, Dr. Peter Antreasian, the following statement after Odysseus was landed and safely operating on the Lunar surface: "Thank you and thanks to the entire KinetX team.   I never fully appreciated the time-pressure a sprint mission to the Moon would entail. But we got there and we did it with the tremendous support of your excellent team."

KinetX and IM engineers will continue to analyze mission data and provide a detailed mission reconstruction to inform improved mission performance and robustness in the future.  The IM-1/Odysseus mission has generated a wealth of technical information and lessons learned that the team will share with the community in forthcoming papers.