Nearly six months after India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully landed on the lunar surface, the Moon was back in news. Houston-based Intuitive Machines scripted history on Thursday evening after its lander Nova-C lander, nicknamed Odysseus, touched down on the moon, making it the first American spacecraft on the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
While it filled the United States' 50-year-old absence from the lunar surface, Intuitive Machine also became the first commercial outfit to put a spacecraft on the Moon.
Odysseus was launched into space on February 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The 14-foot-tall lander then spent six days cruising more than 620,000 miles to reach the moon.
But, the landing was not without a hitch. As Odysseus was making its final descent, mission controllers lost contact with the spacecraft. Though not unexpected, the landing time - Eastern Time 6:24 p.m. - passed uneventfully.
It was then a nail-biting moment as the engineers at Intuitive Machines waited with bated breath to establish communications with lander. "We're not dead yet," they said with hope.
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft passes over the near side of the Moon following lunar orbit insertion | Reuters
Though there was a faint signal from one of Odysseus’ antennas, more data was needed to determine how the spacecraft landed and in what condition. About two hours later, the team received good news. "What we can confirm without a doubt is, our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting," mission director Tim Crain said after that milestone moment. "Odysseus has found his new home."
Odysseus touched down softly near the rim of the crater Malapert A, about 300 kilometers from the lunar south pole where Chandrayaan-3 landed. "After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data," Intuitive Machines said in an update on X. "Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface."
The lander and the payloads will now operate for about seven Earth days on the lunar surface. Like the Pragyan rover in Chandrayaan, the rover of Odysseus will also sleep when the sun goes down at Malapert A, due to the bitter cold of the long lunar night.
After Chandrayaan-3 mission, Japan landed its own moon probe, called SLIM last month.
NASA, which awarded Intuitive Machines $118 million to carry out the moon landing, will likely use these companies to transport cargo and scientific instruments to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s broader ambitions to return astronauts to the moon.
Roping in commerical firms is also part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme. Last month, a separate company tried but failed to send a lander to the moon under the same NASA program. That spacecraft, built by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology, suffered a crippling malfunction shortly after launch, following which the mission was scrapped.
