Foundations for Artemis: NASA Team Anticipates Science, Technology Data Return from Second CLPS Flight

Intuitive Machines’ first flight under NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative lit up Florida’s night sky during its successful launch from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on February 15, 2024. The IM-1 Odysseus lander was carried into space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 12:05 a.m. Central time.

Now on its roughly seven-day cruise to the Moon, IM-1 carries six NASA payloads and six commercial payloads developed by U.S. companies and universities. The NASA payloads will enable the agency to collect data on rocket plume and lunar surface interactions, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies, space weather and lunar surface interactions, and communication and navigation technologies. This data will help NASA better understand the lunar environment and surface characteristics, as well as how to operate in the lunar environment before landing the next generation of explorers.

“All of these payloads help pave the way for Artemis,” said John Gruener, the CLPS deputy project scientist for IM-1. “Location, navigation, communications, landing – all of that is being demonstrated on this mission, so it’s pretty cool.”

Gruener divides his time between CLPS and his role as a space scientist within Johnson’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division, which includes leading the Simulant Development Lab. Gruener was assigned to IM-1 in 2022 and will also serve as deputy project scientist for Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1. “My role as a deputy project scientist is just to pitch in,” he said. “It’s kind of like being a backup quarterback or the relief pitcher on a baseball team. Maybe you never get into the game, but you’re there just in case.”

Gruener said he is particularly interested in the data that will be collected by the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) payload led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. This payload will capture images of how the lander’s engine exhaust scatters lunar regolith and how those particles settle after landing. “We need to understand how that works because when we have an Artemis base camp, we will have landers coming down in an area where we may have habitats, or rovers, or even astronauts on the surface,” he said. Scientists and engineers will use that data to inform designs for future Artemis vehicles and hardware.

Susan Lederer, the lead CLPS project scientist for IM-1, underscored the variety of data the NASA instruments on this flight and future CLPS flights are expected to gather. “These commercial missions bring in different facets that pave the way for understanding what the lunar surface is like and what it will take to create a new place for humans to live and explore,” said Lederer. “We are creating a base for the next generation of explorers and paving the way to Mars.”

In her role as IM-1 project scientist, Lederer has been working with all NASA payload teams and  Debra Needham, program scientist in the science mission directorate at NASA Headquarters, to ensure that mission operations maximize the science and technology return from IM-1 instruments. She is also a planetary and space scientist within ARES, where she specializes in studying non-functional spacecraft and fragments as part of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office and conducts hypervelocity impact experiments with NASA's Experimental Impact Laboratory at Johnson.

While Lederer and Gruener look forward to IM-1’s return of scientific data, CLPS Deputy Project Manager for Technical Ryan Stephan sees great value in the flight’s opportunity to be a proof of concept. “A successful mission demonstrates that small American companies can land on the Moon,” Stephan said. Currently on detail with CLPS vendor Astrobotic, Stephan explained that he fills two different roles for CLPS. His position as a deputy project manager involves working with partners to answer technical questions that affect multiple flights and agency task orders. He also serves as a payload integration manager for specific flights, acting as a liaison between payload teams and the vendor developing a lander to help ensure flight requirements are understood and met. Stephan was the payload integration manager for Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission-1 and will fill that role again for Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission-1, which will deliver NASA’s first robotic rover, VIPER, to the Moon.

His involvement in the Griffin flight has sparked a particular interest in the Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Settings (NDL) payload on IM-1. Led by NASA Langley, this payload uses laser technology to provide extremely precise measurements of a vehicle’s velocity and distance to ground during its descent and landing. Similar technology will be used to guide the Griffin lander, so “seeing how it works will reduce some of the risk for that mission,” Stephan said.

That risk is an element of all CLPS flights that Program Manager Chris Culbert says NASA leaders are aware of and continue to accept. “Even before we’ve successfully landed on the Moon, we believe that CLPS has already had an impact on the commercial infrastructure that’s required to establish a lunar economy,” he said. “We’ve enabled new supply chains that will benefit the entire aerospace industry. These companies are not just building landers to deliver NASA payloads on the Moon, they’re bringing their innovative ideas to Defense Department projects, other NASA work, and commercial opportunities that we couldn’t even envision five years ago.”

IM-1 is targeted to land near the Malapert A crater in the South Pole region of the Moon on February 22. A successful touchdown will make IM-1 the first U.S. lunar landing since the final mission of the Apollo program, over 50 years ago. Two other CLPS deliveries are planned for this year, Intuitive Machines’ second CLIPS flight, IM-2, and Blue Ghost Mission 1.