MP: Madhur Tiwari part of NASA’s IM-1 mission’s Odysseus Lander

Madhur Tiwari, a native of Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal is part of Intuitive Machine (IM)-1 mission’s Odysseus Lander that made a historic landing on the moon on Thursday for NASA.

American Space-exploration company Intuitive Machines landed its spacecraft, Odysseus Lander, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last week from Kennedy Space Centre, on the moon for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Tiwari, a young scientist, who is an assistant professor of Aerospace Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology has developed mini cameras, EagleCam for Odysseus spacecraft. The EagleCam that was dropped on the lunar surface just ahead of the spacecraft landed to take photos of the landing. It will now snap photographs of the Milky Way from the moon.

MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has congratulated Tiwari on his participation in NASA’s IM-1 mission, saying that the son of Madhya Pradesh and young scientist Dr Madhur has made the state and the country proud by making ‘EagleCam Satellite’ and the state is proud of him.

“This achievement of Madhur Tiwari is the result of hard work and tireless efforts. I wish Tiwari a bright future and he continues achieving success in his work”, CM Yadav posted on his official social media handle.

Madhur Tiwari is the son of Sanjay Tiwari, RTO Bhopal and Mamta Tiwari who is a litterateur, after completing his schooling in India, he completed his graduation and post-graduation from a US-based university, Embrey-Riddle Aeronautical in space aeronautics. He has also earned his PhD degree from the same University on the topic -’Advanced Dynamics Controls -Designing Adoptive and Model Predictive Control Technique for Autonomous Tracking and Control with Obstacle Avoidance’.

Prof Tiwari has also been a research fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.

“EagleCam fixed on Nova-C lander has been designed by his team and is now like a fulfilment of a dream. Tiwari said that it is a matter of great pleasure to become a participant in such a significant project of NASA”, Tiwari said.

The Odysseus Lander has been developed by NASA and a Houston-based company, Intuitive Machines. It is carrying tech that will help with future launches, like Artemis 3. It is the first American craft to land successfully since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The IM-1 mission – part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services – is aiming to build science and understanding of the moon’s surface ahead of coming Artemis missions that will ultimately return humans to the moon.

The EagleCam, which will provide a third-person view, was developed by Madhur Tiwari and students at Embry Riddle University.

“We will have a lot of data from the plum of the lander. We want to see how the lander landed. If everything goes smoothly, the idea is that we take this amazing video of a lander landing,” said Madhur Tiwari from Florida. And that will be studied for the more landings to come and ultimately a base on the moon, Tiwari also said. “I am delighted to be a part of this project”, the aerospace technocrat said.

“This was the first mission undertaken by the university students. Under this project, after the spacecraft entered the Moon’s orbit, an instruction was given to the EagleCam to detach and photograph the landing. Wi-Fi technology is being used in this,”

Tiwari added.