Commercial Lunar Rover Added to Second Intuitive Machines Moon Mission

A commercial lunar rover has been added to Intuitive Machines' second planned moon mission. Intuitive Machines and Japan-based robotics company Dymon have signed an agreement to fly Dymon’s Yaoki rover on that mission.

“The addition of Dymon’s Yaoki rover is another critical step towards Intuitive Machines participating in the creation and definition of the lunar economy.”

Steve Altemus, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Intuitive Machines.

Yaoki is expected to be flown to the lunar south pole on board Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander in the second half of 2023. After landing, Yaoki is expected to deploy from Nova-C to demonstrate Dymon’s lunar mobility technology designed by its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shin-ichiro Nakajima.

The agreement with Dymon leverages Intuitive Machines’ Lunar Access Services and Lunar Data Services business segments to land the Yaoki rover on the Moon and control it via secure lunar communications. “The commercial demand for lunar access is growing with each of Intuitive Machines’ four planned missions,” said Steve Altemus, Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Intuitive Machines. “The addition of Dymon’s Yaoki rover is another critical step towards Intuitive Machines participating in the creation and definition of the lunar economy.”

As previously announced on September 16, 2022, Intuitive Machines signed a definitive business combination agreement with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, that is expected to result in Intuitive Machines becoming publicly listed. Completion of the transaction is subject to approval by Inflection Point’s shareholders, the Registration Statement being declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), and other customary closing conditions.

Yaoki Commercial Lunar Rover Part of Polar Resources Experiment

The IM-2 mission, which was announced by Intuitive Machines and NASA last year, will send an ice-mining experiment attached to a robotic lander to the lunar South Pole on a ridge not far from Shackleton crater – a location engineers and scientists have assessed for months. The main goal for the Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) – which consists of a drill paired with a mass spectrometer – a 4G/LTE communications network developed by Nokia of America Corporation, and Micro-Nova, a deployable hopper robot developed by Intuitive Machines, will be an attempt to use the The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT) to drill up to three feet deep into the lunar surface, extract lunar soil – called regolith – and deposit it on the surface for water analysis. PRIME-1’s other instrument, the Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo), will measure volatile gases that readily escape from the material excavated by TRIDENT.

PRIME-1 will be the first demonstration of finding and extracting resources on the Moon.

(Source: Intuitive Machines and NASA. Images provided and from file)