First time a privately owned spacecraft has landed on the moon. Houston-based Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus was the first US spacecraft to reach the moon since the 1972 Apollo mission.
The unmanned Odysseus lands near the moon’s south pole.
It took some time to confirm the landing from the control room. Because, at the very last moment no signal was available. However, after waiting for a few minutes, the concerned were confirmed to receive a signal.
The first announcement came from Flight Director Tim Crane.
“Now we can confirm without any doubt, our instrument is on the surface of the moon and the transmission has started.”
Immediately, excitement spread among the company’s employees.
This is an important moment not only for commercial spaceflight, but for the US space program as a whole.
Thanks to the Intuitive Machine, the United States’ half-century absence from the lunar surface ended.
The country’s last moon mission has to go back to 1972. As part of the Apollo missions, their spacecraft landed on Earth’s only satellite.
NASA has sent six scientific instruments to Odysseus. After the landing, the head of the organization, Bill Nelson, was quick to congratulate him on this ‘success’.
Mr. Nelson said, through this, the United States returned to the moon.
“Today, for the first time in human history, a commercial company, an American company, led such an expedition. This day is a reflection of the strength and commitment of NASA’s commercial partnerships.” He added.
Odysseus landed around 5:30 am on Friday morning Bangladesh time. It is similar to a robot in terms of functionality. Controllers have to wait for several minutes as there is no confirmation signal at first. Then they get a weak signal.
This raises some concerns about the condition of the lander. Engineers will look at these data at a later time. Try to understand what happened. Check to see if Odysseus is OK, collecting energy properly through solar cells.
The spacecraft’s destination was set in the vicinity of a hilly area called Malapert. The height of this hilly area is about five kilometers.
