The United States landed a spacecraft on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years when a private lander reached the lunar surface on Thursday evening.
Intuitive Machines’s Odysseus lander reached the surface of the moon at 6:23 p.m. EST, marking the first time a private craft has landed on Earth’s only natural satellite.
Your order was delivered… to the Moon! ?@Int_Machines' uncrewed lunar lander landed at 6:23pm ET (2323 UTC), bringing NASA science to the Moon's surface. These instruments will prepare us for future human exploration of the Moon under #Artemis. pic.twitter.com/sS0poiWxrU
— NASA (@NASA) February 22, 2024
“What an outstanding effort. I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface, and we are transmitting, and welcome to the moon,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said on the livestream of the landing.
Officials later confirmed that the spacecraft was “upright” and sending data after initial communications complications.
“Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface,” the company said in a post on X at 8:25 p.m. EST on Thursday.
The lander’s mission was to research the surface of the moon’s south pole, aided by a $118 million contract from NASA to deliver six instruments to the lunar surface.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the people behind the project in a video posted to X on Thursday and declared it an example of the “power and promise of NASA’s commercial partnerships.”
Today, for the first time in half a century, America has returned to the Moon ??.
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) February 23, 2024
On the eighth day of a quarter-million-mile voyage, @Int_Machines aced the landing of a lifetime.
What a feat for IM, @SpaceX & @NASA.
What a triumph for humanity.
Odysseus has taken the Moon. pic.twitter.com/JwtCQmMS2K
“Today, for the first time in more than a half-century, the US has returned to the moon. Today for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there,” Nelson said.
“And today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA’s commercial partnerships. Congratulations to everyone involved in this great and daring quest at Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and right here at NASA,” Nelson added.
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Odysseus marks the first time since 1972, with the Apollo program, that the U.S. has landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface. NASA’s Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission.
Artemis III, which will be the first planned manned lunar landing of the program, is currently scheduled to launch in 2026.
