SpaceOps chief executive officer Robin McNeill is excited to be part of next months’ lunar mission IM-2 by Intuitive Machines. This will be the first time the Southland company will be involved in a moon landing. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
SpaceOps, a Southland council-controlled company based in Invercargill, will be helping with the communications of a soft moon landing at the end of next month.
Chief executive Robin McNeill told the Southland Express this week they would be helping the American company Intuitive Machines in its IM-2 mission.
He said this would not only be the first time a Southland company was involved, but it was also a milestone for New Zealand.
"That's huge. I mean, the amateur radio enthusiasts have bounced signals off the moon, transmitting and then the moon reflects the signal, so that's been done before from New Zealand.
"But talking to and commanding spacecraft on the moon, actually no-one from here has done that."
Mr McNeill said the lunar mission IM-2 by Intuitive Machines for Nasa's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program aims to uncover the presence and amount of lunar water ice using PRIME-1, which consists of a drill and mass spectrometer.
The lander will carry a Micro-Nova hopper, a drone that will use its neutron spectrometer in the PSR (permanently shadowed region) of the nearby Marston crater.
If successful, this would provide the first measurement of hydrogen on the surface in the PSR, a key indicator of water.
"What they're really interested in, they'll be landing towards the south pole of the moon and what is exciting about that is, that is where everyone thinks ice is.
"So finding ice on the moon is important for further space exploration of planets. Because ... with the water, you can now use sunshine to turn into oxygen and hydrogen, and that's fuel for rockets, but also for the astronauts.
"If and when they get there, [they] can breathe the oxygen and drink the water."
The spacecraft Falcon 9 would be launched from Florida, then it would go around the equator, into what was called lunar transit, lunar insertion orbit, he said.
"Then at that point it heads off to the moon and it takes a few days to get there because it's a quarter of a million kilometres ... and then we'll be looking at talking to the lander for maybe 10 hours a day for five or six days.
"And then after that, it goes to night time and nights on the moon last two weeks, at which point batteries will go flat and the lander probably dies and that's the end of the mission."
The operations will be carried out in the recently bought antenna by SpaceOps' Warkworth Space Centre _ 90km from Auckland.
Two staff from Southland and two staff from SpaceOps, based at the space centre, will be taking part.
"We will be using the 30-metre dish to transmit signals among the spacecraft, the lander," Mr McNeill said.
"But also indirectly from the lander to the little rover."
The mission followed the first attempt last year where the IM-1 landed on the moon but was not able to complete the mission, he said.
"It was the first commercial moon lander, but unfortunately, it fell over.
"They got some signals back to Earth, but even having a soft landing is a major breakthrough."
Mr McNeill said he was nervous as this would be the first time the company had taken part in a moon landing.
However he hoped this would be the first of many, as Intuitive Machines had a series of five moon landings scheduled.
"We're very focused and one or two things haven't quite gone right and they will.
"On a big antenna, there is nothing small on a big antenna, and when you get bits of antenna machinery, what we call feed horns, they're not 1 kilogram, they're 40kg.
"So what we're doing in theory is very simple, but actually turning it into something very big which is actually quite daunting, but we're pretty excited."
