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Space | 28. February 2024 | posted by Matthias Grott

German instrument to study Moon's eternal shadows with private mission

Aufnahme der Landestelle des Landers der IM-1-Mission
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
The landing site of the IM-1 lunar lander, between craters Malapert A and Malapert C. The image was acquired by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on board the NASA mission of the same name and covers an area of just under one square kilometre.

On 22 February 2024, the US 'New Space' company Intuitive Machines became the first private company to land on the Moon with its IM-1 Odysseus mission. The landing site is located around 800 kilometres north of the lunar South Pole, east of the Malapert A crater. According to Intuitive Machines, the landing took place just 1500 metres from the intended landing site, meaning that Odysseus is located in the south of the South Pole-Aitken impact basin which measures over 2000 kilometres in diameter. The exact landing coordinates are 80.13 degrees South and 1.44 degrees East. The lander is on a surface at an incline of 12 degrees and topographical height of 2579 metres above the reference 'selenoid' – a modelled 'lunar surface' with identical gravitational pull. read more