by The United States has returned to the surface of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years after a private spacecraft named Odysseus made a 73-minute descent from orbit with a nail near the moon’s south pole.
Amidst the celebration of what NASA called a “giant landing pad”, the status or condition of the lander was not immediately confirmed, other than that it had reached its planned landing site at the Malapert A crater.
But Intuitive Machines, the Texas-based company that built the first commercial craft to land on the moon, later said the craft was “just and starting to send data”.
The statement on X said mission managers were “working to bring down the first images from the lunar surface”.
Thursday’s so-called “soft landing,” which company founder Steve Altemus gave only an 80% chance of success, was designed to usher in a new era of lunar exploration as NASA works toward a late-scheduled mission- 2026 until. put people back there.
“Welcome to the moon,” said Altemus when contact was down when the touch was finally confirmed at 5.23pm, after about 10 minutes of no contact by Odysseus.
It was the first time any US-built spacecraft had landed on the moon since NASA’s most recent crewed visit, the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, and the first visit by a commercial vehicle after last month’s failure of Peregrine One, another space partnership. agency and private company, Astrobotic.
“Today, for the first time in over half a century, the United States has returned to the moon. Today, for the first time in human history, a commercial company, an American company, launched the trip up there and directed it,” said Bill Nelson, NASA administrator.
“What a victory. Odysseus took the moon. This achievement is a great step forward for all mankind.”
There was no video of the full descent of Odysseus, which slowed to about 2.2mph at 33 feet above the surface. But a camera built by students at Florida’s Embry-Riddle aeronautical university was designed to fall and take pictures just before touchdown, and NASA cameras were set to photograph the ground from the spacecraft.
The 14-foot (4.3-meter) hexagonal, six-barrel Nova-C lander, known as Odie by Intuitive Machines employees, is part of NASA’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, in which the agency awards contracts to private partners, to primarily to support him. the Artemis program.
NASA provided $118m to make it happen, with Intuitive Machines funding another $130m before it was launched on February 15 from the Kennedy space center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
The IM-1 mission, like the doomed Falcon effort, is carrying a payload of scientific equipment designed to gather data about the lunar environment, specifically in the rocky region chosen as the landing site for NASA’s planned two-year Artemis III crewed mission. . .
It’s a hazardous area – “pockmarked with all these craters”, according to Nelson – but chosen because it’s believed to be rich in frozen water that could help maintain a permanent lunar base vital to human missions to Mars. In the future.
Scientists announced last year that they believed there were “billions of tons of water” in tiny glass beads scattered on the surface of the moon that could be harvested and used on future missions.
It’s worth the risks, Nelson told CNN Thursday, “to see if there’s enough water. Because if there is water, there is rocket fuel: hydrogen, and oxygen. And we might have a gas station on the south pole of the moon.”
The planned operational life of the solar powered lander is just seven days, before the landing site moves about 186 miles from the moon’s south pole into Earth’s shadow. But NASA hopes that will be long enough to analyze how the soil there responded to the impact of the landing.
Other instruments will focus on the effects of space weather on the lunar surface, and a network of markers will be used for communication and navigation.
“Odysseus, powered by a company called Intuitive Machines, launched on a SpaceX rocket, carrying a bounty of NASA scientific instruments, carrying the dream of a new adventure in science, innovation and American leadership in space,” Nelson said.
Through Artemis, NASA’s lunar return program that also has longer-term visions of manned missions to Mars within the next two decades, the US seeks to stay ahead of Russia and China, both of whom are planning their own human moons. landing
Astronauts had previously landed only in the United States, in six Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972, and five countries had sent unmanned spacecraft there. Japan joined the United States, Russia, China and India last month when its Smart Lander for Investigation of the Moon (narrow) made a successful, if awkward, contact after a three-month flight.
Two other Intuitive Machine launches are scheduled for later this year, including an ice drill to extract ingredients from rocket fuel, and another Nova-C lander carrying a small Nasa rover and four small robots that will probe surface conditions.
