Rock West Composites support moon lander mission

Rock West Composites (RWC, San Diego, Calif., U.S.) composite structures are part of Intuitive Machines’ (Houston, Texas, U.S.) recently launched IM-1 lunar mission. The mission is part of NASA’s (Washington, D.C., U.S.) Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign, ultimately aimed at returning humans to the moon.

RWC delivered multiple configurations of machined and tested struts with bonded fittings to Intutive Machines for incorporation into its Nova-C lunar lander Odysseus. The struts met challenging surface profile and straightness requirements for both interior and exterior dimensions.

The strut structures include both circular cross-section tubes with and without bonded titanium fittings, and rectangular tubes with a tooled surface on the inside and outside face. The struts are primarily constructed of HM63/PMT-F6 unidirectional prepreg with 0.010-inch and tighter surface profile and straightness requirements. According to RWC, the rectangular tubes were especially challenging due to the tooled surface requirement on the interior and exterior with a tight surface profile requirement on both sides to enable next-level assembly tolerances. The hardware was built to specifications along with input from RWC on the final design for manufacturability and requirements compliance. The struts with bonded fittings were pull-tested in-house at RWC prior to final integration at Intuitive Machines.

“We are honored to support our commercial customers in this race to the moon and ultimately a sustained human presence there,” RWC’s space segment director Jeremy Senne, says. “Our precision composite components can give our customers the performance they need to succeed in this high-risk and clearly challenging business.”

The goal of the IM-1 mission is to land an uncrewed lunar lander near the moon’s south pole, demonstrating navigation, landing and communication technologies. The mission will also study how the rocket plume interacts with both the lunar surface and the space weather environment at the landing site — a region being assessed for the Artemis III mission that will place astronauts on the moon.