Intuitive Machines Selected by NASA JPL to Provide Spacecraft Platform for FALCON-RADAR Cloud Mission, Launch No Earlier Than 2029
Intuitive Machines, Inc. (Nasdaq: LUNR), a space technology and infrastructure company based in Houston, Texas, announced on November 3 that it has been selected by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to provide the spacecraft platform and system-level integration for FALCON-RADAR, an Earth observation mission that will study clouds and convection from space. The company announced the award through GlobeNewswire; financial terms were not disclosed.
FALCON-RADAR, part of the Fleet for the Atmospheric Linking Commercial Observations with NASA (FALCON), will fly on the company's IM 300 spacecraft bus and is targeted for launch no earlier than 2029. The mission consists of a single polar-orbiting, sun-synchronous satellite carrying a W-band cloud profiling Doppler radar instrument designed to observe shallow light precipitation and small-scale cloud dynamics. The company said the millimeter-wavelength radar technology may also support future Moon and Mars applications.
As part of the FALCON fleet, FALCON-RADAR will supply two-dimensional cloud context and detect convection. Combined with water vapor and aerosol measurements from other missions, its data will help the Earth science community profile the processes responsible for rain and snow near Earth's surface.
The spacecraft is being developed in collaboration with EAGLE-VSWIR, another NASA mission recently awarded to Intuitive Machines, and the two missions will provide complementary science data. Together with the EDGE (Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer) mission, managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and led by Principal Investigator Dr. Helen Amanda Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, the award marks the third Intuitive Machines mission supporting NASA's Earth science objectives in the last six months.
"Our reliable and modular platforms align with NASA's goal of delivering more science on faster timelines," said Steve Altemus, chief executive officer of Intuitive Machines. "We combine spacecraft manufacturing at scale with deep mission systems and integration expertise, and Earth science is a natural fit. This mission draws on the same capabilities we already deliver across our commercial, civil, and national security work."
Intuitive Machines delivers integrated capabilities across spacecraft manufacturing, communications, networks, mission operations and ground infrastructure for commercial, civil and national security customers, and its IM 300 series platform currently supports multiple programs spanning national security and civil space applications.
(Source: Intuitive Machines)
Source: Intuitive Machines
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：气象卫星 GOES-17 拍摄的地球全圆盘云图。NOAA/NASA，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Full-disk view of Earth and its cloud systems captured by the GOES-17 weather satellite. NOAA/NASA, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
