SpaceX Falcon 9: Nova-C, Lunar Trailblazer, Odin, & Chimera (Patreon)

SpaceX Falcon 9 Nova-C IM-2 & Lunar Trailblazer Payloads

Did You Know that SpaceX is set to launch a lunar lander, a lunar orbiter, an asteroid surveyor, and an Orbital Transfer Vehicle aboard a Falcon 9 this evening? They are!

Let's breakdown the payloads and see what hitched a ride.

Nova-C Lunar Lander:

The Nova-C, by Houston-based Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines), is a spacecraft built to ferry payloads to the Moon’s surface. It’s a key player in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which taps private companies to support the Artemis initiative’s lunar ambitions. Standing 13 feet tall with a hexagonal frame and six sturdy legs, the lander comes in at 4,200 pounds when loaded for launch. It’s powered by an innovative mix of liquid methane and oxygen—methalox propulsion—making it the first Moon-bound craft to use this fuel. With a payload capacity of 220 pounds and solar panels churning out 200 watts during the lunar day, it’s a compact workhorse designed for efficiency.

This is the second lunar lander mission, hence the name IM-2. This time, Nova-C will haul NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), a mission to extract and analyze lunar resources on-site. PRIME-1 packs two key tools: the TRIDENT drill and the MSolo mass spectrometer. The TRIDENT will bore into the surface to hunt for water ice, and the MSolo mass spectrometer is tasked with sniffing out and measuring any frozen bounty. IM-2 is set to touch down near the lunar south pole and aims to prove that the Moon’s own materials could one day fuel future missions.

Lunar Trailblazer:

NASA's (@NASA) Lunar Trailblazer is a small lunar orbiter that is part of the SIMPLEx program. Te mission is led by Caltech's Bethany Ehlmann and managed by JPL (@NASAJPL). The spacecraft is built by Lockheed Martin (@LockheedMartin) and weighs 210-kilogram. The satellite aims to map water on the Moon’s surface to deepen our understanding of the lunar water cycle. It carries two key instruments; the High Resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) from JPL and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) from the University of Oxford. They will detect and distinguish between forms of water (ice, H2O, or hydroxyl) across sunlit and permanently shadowed regions.

After launch, Trailblazer will take a six-month journey, using gravitational assists from the Sun, Earth, and Moon to settle into a 100-kilometer polar orbit, where it will spend at least a year creating high-resolution maps of water distribution. These maps will support NASA’s Artemis program by identifying potential water resources for future human missions, offering insights into how water behaves on airless bodies like the Moon.

Odin:

AstroForge's (@astroforge) Odin is the first private deep-space mission targeting asteroid 2022 OB5. This is a near-Earth metallic asteroid up to 328 feet (100 meters) in diameter. Odin's objective is to perform a flyby roughly 301 days after launch and capture high-resolution images to assess the asteroid's metal content, potentially including vast amounts of platinum.

AstroForge, a California-based asteroid mining company founded in 2022 by Matt Gialich and Jose Acain, aims to create a cost-effective space resource extraction. Odin, built in-house after an earlier version failed vibration testing, represents a rapid, $6.5 million development effort to scout the asteroid ahead of a future landing mission, Vestri, planned for later in 2025. Odin’s potential to unlock resources like 117,000 tons of platinum, enough to supply Earth for centuries, emphasizes the high-risk, high-reward nature of this venture.

Chimera GEO 1 OTV:

Epic Aerospace's (@epicaerospace) Chimera GEO 1 is an Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) designed for high-energy transfers. This spacecraft has over 1.7 km/s of delta-v, positioning it with the capability to reach geostationary orbit (GEO) and potentially beyond. Epic Aerospace is focused on creating a network of reusable space tugs, Chimera GEO 1 follows their earlier Chimera LEO 1 mission launched in 2023 on SpaceX’s Transporter-6. The vehicle can handle payload capacities ranging from 300 to 4,000 kg, offering services like transfers from low Earth orbit (LEO) or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) to GEO, trans-lunar injections, and lunar orbit insertions.

This mission builds on Epic’s goal to simplify satellite mobility, using a propulsion system with non-toxic, high-performance propellants and a versatile structure.

Of note, Exolaunch (@Exolaunch) is supplying its flight-proven CarboNIX separation system to facilitate the deployment of Intuitive Machines-customer payloads from AstroForge and Epic Aerospace. Additionally, Exolaunch's EXOpod Nova deployer will be mounted to Epic Aerospace's OTV, enabling the secondary deployment of a cubesat at a precise mission phase post-launch.

The launch will take place from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and is currently set for 7:17 p.m. ET. The booster will land on droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. Pic by NSF's Sawyer Rosenstein (@thenasaman).