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A picture taken by the Odysseus spacecraft while in orbit around the moon<\/p>\n
Intuitive Machines<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Intuitive Machines\u2019 Odysseus lander has touched down on the moon. This is the first time that a private firm has landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface, a welcome success after a recent string of high-profile landing failures by other companies.<\/p>\n
The Odysseus craft launched for this flight, called the IM-1 mission, atop a Falcon 9 rocket on 14 February. It arrived in lunar orbit on 21 February before landing near the south pole of the moon on 22 February.<\/p>\n
The live feed from mission control was tense, as the planned landing time slipped by with no communication from the lander. Eventually, several minutes after Odysseus was supposed to land, mission director Tim Crain in Intuitive Machines\u2019 mission control said, \u201cWe\u2019re picking up a signal \u2013 it\u2019s faint, but it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The signal showed that the spacecraft had touched down on the moon, but the state of the craft is still unknown. Nevertheless, the landing was a success. \u201cI know this was a nail-biter but we are on the surface,\u201d said Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus. \u201cWelcome to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Before this landing, three other companies attempted to send landers to the moon. SpaceIL\u2019s Beresheet craft launched in 2019 and ispace\u2019s Hakuto-R mission launched in 2022, but each of them crash-landed and was wrecked. <\/p>\n Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lander didn\u2019t even make it that far after its January launch \u2013 a fuel leak forced its operators to return it to Earth to burn up in the atmosphere. With the success of IM-1, Intuitive Machines joins an elite club \u2013 only the national space agencies of the Soviet Union, the US, China, India and Japan have successfully landed on the moon before.<\/p>\n Now that it has landed safely, the second part of the IM-1 mission can begin. Odysseus carried six NASA payloads and six commercial payloads with it to the moon. Some of these, such as devices to assist with the landing and a camera to take photographs of the landing, have already served their purpose. A few have succeeded just by making it to the moon \u2013 perhaps most notably a collection of 125 tiny sculptures by artist Jeff Koons. Others, including instruments to measure how the environment around the moon affects its surface, begin their missions now.<\/p>\n The IM-1 mission is part of NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, through which government contracts are awarded to private companies with the aim of building space flight capabilities through public-private partnerships. Three more lunar landings are planned through CLPS in 2024, one of which is Intuitive Machines\u2019 mission to harvest water ice from the south pole of the moon.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n