A historic milestone has been achieved as the American company Intuitive Machines successfully landed its spacecraft on the Moon. The Odysseus robot touched down near the lunar south pole, marking the first instance of a commercial entity achieving such a feat.
While it took some time for controllers to confirm the successful landing, the team eventually received signals indicating that the equipment was on the lunar surface and actively transmitting. Flight director Tim Crain announced the confirmation, emphasizing the significant achievement of placing commercial technology on the Moon.
The staff at the company erupted into cheers and applause upon receiving the news. This momentous occasion marked not only a significant advancement in commercial space exploration but also a pivotal moment for the broader US space program.
Intuitive Machines has effectively ended the United States’ half-century hiatus from the Moon’s surface. The last instance of American hardware making a gentle descent onto the lunar soil dates back to the final Apollo mission in 1972.
It was a nervous wait for company staff as the spacecraft headed down to the Moon
NASA, the United States’ space agency, had secured space on Odysseus for six scientific instruments. Bill Nelson, the agency’s administrator, promptly extended his congratulations to Intuitive Machines, characterizing the mission as a “triumph.”
“The United States has marked its return to the Moon,” he declared. “For the first time in human history, a commercial entity – an American firm – initiated and managed the journey to lunar terrain. Today underscores the effectiveness and potential of NASA’s collaborations with the commercial sector.”
Controllers faced a nearly mission-halting technical glitch even before the descent initiation. The ranging lasers on Odysseus, designed to compute the spacecraft’s altitude and velocity, experienced malfunctions. Fortunately, Nasa had included experimental lasers on board, allowing engineers to successfully connect them to the navigation computers.
