HOUSTON, February 23, 2024 – For the first time in over 50 years, an American spacecraft successfully landed on the moon on Thursday, marking a pivotal milestone in NASA’s ambitious plans to eventually transport astronauts back to Earth’s natural satellite.
The four-legged lander, dubbed Odysseus and built by Texas-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines, alighted onto the rugged surface of Oceanus Procellarum at 6:24 pm EST following an arduous 11-minute powered descent full of suspense and uncertainty.
“We have landed, the first American vertical landing vehicle since Apollo,” announced Steve Altemus, CEO and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, his voice brimming with excitement and pride. “This is a Wright Brothers moment for Intuitive Machines and the beginning of a new era of lunar exploration. We stand on the shoulders of giants – the NASA Apollo program conceivers and doers.”
What Does This Achievement Signify?
This touchdown denotes the first time a private company has ever delivered a spacecraft to the moon on behalf of NASA. It represents a shift in the American space agency’s lunar exploration strategy towards partnering with commercial partners for affordable and sustainable access to Earth’s natural satellite.
By outsourcing landers and other lunar services to the commercial sector, NASA can focus resources on ambitious human missions, space science, and technology demonstrations – all gearing up towards a crewed mission in 2025.
Key Objectives of the Mission
This inaugural moon mission aimed to accomplish a variety of objectives:
- Demonstrate capabilities for precise and soft lunar landings
- Test avionics, propulsion, and other spacecraft systems in the harsh lunar environment
- Obtain images of lunar dust plumes created by the lander’s thrusters during descent
- Deliver 5 NASA science payloads and 3 commercial ones that will collect vital data about the lunar environment over the next year
Navigational Glitch Overcome
The smooth touchdown was briefly jeopardized when a navigational laser system onboard Odysseus malfunctioned during the final descent. This critical tool provides key altitude and velocity data to guide autonomous landings.
Fortunately, the lander was able to leverage the NASA-provided backup navigation equipment and still navigate precisely to the planned landing site within Mare Crisium, a basaltic lunar mare about 300 miles East of Apollo 11’s 1969 landing site.
What’s Next?
As part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, Intuitive Machines and Odysseus will spend the next year demonstrating systems critical to sustained lunar surface campaigns. The lander will also deliver payloads for NASA, including an atomic clock experiment, two rover-like vibroacoustic experiments, a radiation dosimeter, and an optical telescope.
This mission paves the path for Intuitive Machine’s second CLPS contract – ferrying NASA’s micro-rover escorted by a small helicopter drone aboard Project VIPER, which will scout for lunar resources in 2025.
“Today we landed close to the roses, next time we plan to land on the X,” said Altemus during the celebratory briefing, highlighting that there is still much to learn and innovate as NASA expands humanity’s imprint on the lunar surface.
