Look US spacecraft Odysseus lands on the Moon, ending America’s half-century lunar hiatus

For the first time in nearly half a century, and since the Apollo era, an American spacecraft landed on the Moon. The spacecraft is an unmanned 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 neighbor later this decade. Odysseus approached the moon’s south pole at 2323 GMT on Thursday.

It was a thrilling final descent as flight controllers had to switch to the experimental landing system and it took several minutes to establish radio contact with the lander after it came to rest.

“Today, for the first time in more than half a century, America returns 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 journey there.”

Photos from an external “EagleCam” designed to capture the spacecraft’s exit during the final seconds of its descent will likely be released Friday morning, according to a report from the Sun. AFP,

“After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed that Odysseus is upright and is beginning to send data,” Intuitive Machines said in its latest update on the X.

“At the moment, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.”

Hiccups and landing at the lunar south pole

The onboard navigation system failed during landing and Odysseus flew the final leg of his journey using only an experimental laser guidance system developed by NASA to run as a technology demonstration.

Landing confirmation should have come a few seconds after the milestone, but instead about 15 minutes passed as the announcers considered whether the aircraft had descended “off angle.”

Finally, the company’s Chief Technology Officer Tim Crain confirmed, “Our instrument is on the lunar surface and we are transmitting,” as Mission Control broke into applause.

Odysseus landed in the impact crater Malapert A, 300 kilometers (180 mi) from the moon’s south pole.

Odysseus is hexagon shaped and approximately the size of a large golf cart. It was launched from Florida on February 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It has a new liquid methane, liquid oxygen propulsion system that travels a quarter of a million miles in quick time.

Odysseus carries with it six NASA science instruments, including cameras to examine how the moon’s surface changes as a result of a spacecraft’s engine plume, and charged dust suspended on the surface at twilight as a result of solar radiation. A tool for analyzing clouds of particles is also included. ,

The remaining merchandise was sent on behalf of Intuitive Machines’ private customers, and includes 125 stainless steel Mini Moons created by artist Jeff Koons.

NASA hopes to eventually build a long-term presence and harvest polar ice for both drinking water and rocket fuel for further trips to Mars under its flagship program Artemis.

The current mission is “one of the first forays into the South Pole to really look at the environmental conditions where we’re going to send our astronauts in the future,” said senior NASA official Joel Kearns.

NASA’s first crewed mission to the region is not scheduled before 2026. America’s geopolitical rival China also plans to send its first crew to the Moon in 2030, ushering in a new era of space competition.

Spacecraft landing on the Moon must travel through hazardous terrain and rely on thrusters to control their descent in the absence of an atmosphere.