CSIRO's Dish to support one of the first commercial Moon landings

The iconic Parkes radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, will help businesses to literally reach for the Moon by providing ground station support for one of the first commercial lunar landings later this year.

CSIRO has signed a new five-year agreement with Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines to support multiple lunar missions, including their first flight under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The Parkes telescope, also known as Murriyang, is valuable for spacecraft tracking due to its large dish surface and advanced data acquisition systems, which are used primarily for astronomy research.

The 64-metre telescope will be the largest and most sensitive receiving ground station for Intuitive Machines' upcoming missions, maximising the return of the scientific and engineering data for the lunar exploration program.

Added by Gabby Russell on 2021-03-26