CLEVELAND — NASA's first uncrewed commercial moon landing in the U.S. is underway.
The Odysseus lunar lander officially touched the surface of the moon Thursday near the South Pole region. It is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign.
The Odysseus was launched on Feb. 16 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is carrying out several experiments, including technology developed right here in Clevland at the NASA Glenn Research Center.
Over the past 15 years, the Radio Frequency Mass Gauge has been designed to measure the amount of fuel in spacecraft while in micro-gravity. Erin Pisciotta, an Engineering Project Manager at NASA Glenn, says to think of it like the gas gauge in your car.
“When you're on Earth, gravity helps out quite a bit and the fluid in your gas tank stays level for the most part, and you're able to get a reading that way,” explains Pisciotta. “However, when you're in space, there's no gravity. The liquids on the walls, there are bubbles forming, so it's really hard to use the same type of gauging system.”
In addition to that, the fuel needs to stay at extremely cold temperatures. So, it is easy to lose fuel through evaporation. The Mass Gauge is unique because it is part of the Odysseus lander. Helping with the mission by sending back data as it travels to the moon.
“Before every maneuver that they've had, we've been able to get measurements before they do a burn,” said Pisciotta. “And our team here has been analyzing that data and providing feedback to Intuitive Machines as they're doing their mission.”
It’s possible this technology will be part of future manned spacecraft.
“We're already working with advancing this technology in our labs here at NASA's Glenn Research Center, making it faster,” said Pisciotta. “How we can improve the accuracy for those future missions to the moon and to Mars.”
Following the successful landing, 3News spoke with JonDarr Bradshaw, community engagement coordinator at the Great Lakes Science Center. Formerly a NASA contractor for 27 years, he was thrilled with the mission's local ties, and was able to explain the significance of the moon's south pole.
"What we like to say is you cant get to the moon without going through Cleveland first," Bradshaw said. "We found frozen water ice in the bottoms of those craters, water ice that's been there for more than four billion years. The bottom of these craters have never ever seen sunlight."
And that, he says, could make a huge difference in future travel.
"If we’re thinking about human space flight, the presence of water there means that's one less thing for us to have to take into space with us," he explained. "Remember, for every pound that you want to put on orbit, it takes eight pounds of our best fuel to get it there, so if we don't have to take the water that we need for a mission, if we can melt that ice, purify that water, now we have drinking water for our crew."
As all eyes now are on future missions, and beyond.
"This is the first step to something much bigger, much greater," Bradshaw said. "We have plans to explore our solar system in ways that we've never done before."
