23-2-2024 (TEXAS) A spacecraft developed and operated by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines successfully touched down near the south pole of the moon on February 22. This marks the first United States touchdown on the lunar surface in over 50 years and the first accomplished entirely by the private sector.
Named Odysseus, the six-legged robot lander completed its landing at approximately 6:23 pm EST (7:23 am, February 23, Singapore time), as confirmed by a joint webcast from Intuitive Machines’ mission operations center in Houston and NASA commentators.
The spacecraft, as planned, is believed to have settled at a crater called Malapert A near the moon’s south pole, as indicated during the webcast.
Confirmation of the successful landing came through signals transmitted back to mission control from a distance of about 384,000 kilometers. However, re-establishing communication with the vehicle took several minutes, and the initial signal received was faint, leaving mission control uncertain about the precise condition and position of the lander, as stated by flight controllers during the webcast.
Odysseus was not equipped to provide live video coverage of the landing event.
The touchdown followed a last-minute glitch with the spacecraft’s autonomous navigation system, which required engineers on the ground to implement a workaround solution.
The vehicle carries a suite of scientific instruments and technology demonstrations for NASA and various commercial customers. It is designed to operate for seven days using solar energy before the sun sets over the polar landing site. NASA’s payload will focus on gathering data pertaining to space weather interactions with the moon’s surface, radio astronomy, and other aspects of the lunar environment, which will aid in future landings and NASA’s planned return of astronauts to the moon later in the decade.
The uncrewed IM-1 mission was launched towards the moon on February 21 atop a Falcon 9 rocket provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The February 22 landing represents the first controlled descent to the lunar surface by a US spacecraft since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, when NASA’s last crewed moon mission successfully landed there with astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.
To date, only four other countries have achieved moon landings: the former Soviet Union, China, India, and most recently, Japan in January 2024. The United States remains the only nation to have sent humans to the lunar surface.
The arrival of Odysseus also signifies the first “soft landing” on the moon by a commercially manufactured and operated vehicle and the first under NASA’s Artemis lunar program. This comes as the United States races against China to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite.
NASA’s Artemis program aims to land its first crewed mission by late 2026, marking a significant step towards sustained lunar exploration and eventual human flights to Mars. The program’s focus on the moon’s south pole is due in part to the presence of frozen water resources that can be utilized for life support and the production of rocket fuel.
Under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, a plethora of small landers like Odysseus are expected to pave the way for cost-effective delivery of instruments and hardware to the moon, in comparison to NASA’s traditional method of building and launching vehicles itself.
