A commercial US spaceship has landed on the surface of the Moon and flight controllers have received a signal from the vessel, the company behind the mission said on Thursday night.
“Without a doubt, our equipment is on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting,” said Tim Crain of Intuitive Machines.
“Congratulations, IM team – we'll see how much more we can get from that.”
It marks the first US Moon landing in more than 50 years and is part of a new fleet of Nasa-funded, uncrewed commercial craft intended to pave the way for astronaut missions later this decade.
Until now, only the space agencies of the former Soviet Union, US, China, India and Japan have accomplished the feat, making for an exclusive club.
Underscoring the technical challenges inherent in the task, Houston-based Intuitive Machines was forced to make a late switch from using the craft's own navigation system, which stopped working, to an experimental laser landing system built by Nasa.
A previous moonshot by another US company last month ended in failure, raising the stakes to demonstrate that private industry has what it takes to repeat a feat last achieved by Nasa during its manned Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
The current mission is “one of the first forays into the south pole to actually look at the environmental conditions to a place we're going to be sending our astronauts in the future”, said senior Nasa official Joel Kearns.
“What type of dust or dirt is there, how hot or cold does it get, what's the radiation environment? These are all things you'd really like to know before you send the first human explorers.”
Odysseus was launched on February 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and has a new type of supercooled liquid oxygen, liquid methane propulsion system that allowed it to race through space in quick time.
Nasa hopes to eventually build a long-term presence and harvest ice on the Moon for both drinking water and rocket fuel under Artemis, its flagship Moon-to-Mars programme.
Instruments carried on Odysseus include cameras to investigate how the lunar surface changes as a result of the engine plume from a spaceship, and a device to analyse clouds of charged dust particles that hang over the surface at twilight as a result of solar radiation.
It also carries a Nasa landing system that fires laser pulses, measuring the time taken for the signal to return and its change in frequency to precisely judge the spacecraft's velocity and distance from the surface, to avoid a catastrophic impact.
The hardware will run for about seven days until lunar night occurs, which will render Odysseus inoperable.
The rest of the cargo was paid for by Intuitive Machines' private clients, and includes 125 stainless steel mini moons by the artist Jeff Koons.
There is also an archive created by a non-profit whose goal is to leave backups of human knowledge across the solar system.
Nasa paid Intuitive Machines $118 million to ship its hardware under a new initiative called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, which it created to delegate cargo services to the private sector to achieve savings and stimulate a wider lunar economy.
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
Four tips to secure IoT networks
Mohammed Abukhater, vice president at FireEye in the Middle East, said:
- Keep device software up-to-date. Most come with basic operating system, so users should ensure that they always have the latest version
- Besides a strong password, use two-step authentication. There should be a second log-in step like adding a code sent to your mobile number
- Usually smart devices come with many unnecessary features. Users should lock those features that are not required or used frequently
- Always create a different guest network for visitors
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Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
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2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
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The biog
Simon Nadim has completed 7,000 dives.
The hardest dive in the UAE is the German U-boat 110m down off the Fujairah coast.
As a child, he loved the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau
He also led a team that discovered the long-lost portion of the Ines oil tanker.
If you are interested in diving, he runs the XR Hub Dive Centre in Fujairah
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Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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1.
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United States
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2.
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China
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3.
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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6.
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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