For the first time in almost half a century and since the Apollo era, an American spaceship landed on the Moon. The spaceship is an uncrewed commercial robot named Odysseus, built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines and funded by NASA.
Odysseus will pave the way for American astronauts to return to Earth’s neighbour later this decade. Odysseus touched down near the lunar south pole Thursday at 2323 GMT.
It was a nail-biting final descent as flight controllers had to switch to an experimental landing system and took several minutes to establish radio contact with the lander after it came to rest.
“Today for the first time in more than a half century, the US has returned to the Moon," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a video. “Today for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there."
The photos from an external “EagleCam" designed to shoot out from the spacecraft during its final seconds of descent will most likely be released early Friday, according to a report by the AFP.
“After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data," Intuitive Machines said in its latest update on X.
“Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface."
Hiccups and Landing in Lunar South Pole
The onboard navigation system failed during the descent and Odysseus flew the final leg of its trip using an experimental laser guidance system developed by NASA to run only as a technology demonstration.
Confirmation of landing was supposed to come seconds after the milestone, but instead nearly 15 minutes passed as announcers mused whether the craft had come down “off angle."
Finally, the company’s chief technology officer Tim Crain confirmed “our equipment is on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting," as applause broke out in mission control.
Odysseus touched down in Malapert A, an impact crater 300 kilometres (180 miles) from the lunar south pole.
The Odysseus is hexagon-shaped and is roughly about the size of a large golf cart. It was launched from Florida on February 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It boasts a new liquid methane, liquid oxygen propulsion system that traversed the quarter million mile voyage in quick time.
Odysseus carries six NASA science instruments, including cameras to investigate how the lunar surface changes as a result of the engine plume from a spaceship, and a device to analyse clouds of charged dust particles that hang over the surface at twilight as a result of solar radiation.
The rest of the cargo was shipped on behalf of Intuitive Machines’ private clients, and includes 125 stainless steel mini Moons by the artist Jeff Koons.
NASA hopes to eventually build a long-term presence and harvest polar ice for both drinking water and rocket fuel for an onward journey to Mars under Artemis, its flagship program.
The current mission is “one of the first forays into the south pole to actually look at the environmental conditions to a place we’re going to be sending our astronauts in the future," said senior NASA official Joel Kearns.
NASA’s first crewed mission to the region is scheduled for no sooner than 2026. America’s geopolitical rival China is also planning to send its first crew to the Moon in 2030, ushering in a new era of space competition.
Spaceships landing on the Moon must navigate treacherous terrain and rely on thrusters to control their descent in the absence of an atmosphere.
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