United States: The United States has made a historic moon landing for the first time in over 50 years. A privately built spacecraft named Odysseus touched down on the lunar’s South pole surface after an exhilarating 73-minute fall from orbit.
NASA called this achievement “a giant leap forward.” However, no conformation regarding the state of the lander yet. Later on, however, the Texas-based business Intuitive Machines, which constructed the first commercial spacecraft to touch down on the moon, declared that the ship was “upright and starting to send data.”
It was the first landing by a commercial vehicle on the moon since Peregrine One, another collaboration between NASA and a private company, Astrobotic, failed last month. It was also the first time any US-built spacecraft had touched down on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission, which took place in December 1972.
The fully autonomous descent of Odysseus, which slowed to roughly 2.2 mph at 33 feet above the surface, was not captured on camera. However, a camera constructed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students in Florida was supposed to descend and capture images just prior to landing, and NASA cameras were programmed to capture images of the earth from the spacecraft.
Employees at Intuitive Machines lovingly refer to the 14-foot (4.3-meter) hexagon-shaped, six-legged Nova-C lander as “Odie.” It is a component of NASA’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) program, under which the agency contracts with private companies, primarily to support the Artemis program.
Its initial funding came from $118 million from NASA and an additional $130 million from Intuitive Machines prior to its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm on February 15 from Florida’s Kennedy space center.