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US company Intuitive Machines’ first lunar lander has touched down on the moon, marking the first American spacecraft to land on the lunar surface in more than 50 years.
According to NASA, the unmanned lander known as Odysseus touched down at the lunar South Pole on Thursday at 6:23 p.m. Eastern Time. NASA science and other commercial payloads are transported to the moon by Odysseus.
Last Thursday, the spacecraft was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. According to the Xinhua news agency, the project, dubbed IM-1, is Intuitive Machines’ first robotic voyage to the moon.
The mission’s scientific goals include investigating plume-surface interactions, space weather impacts with the lunar surface, and radio astronomy.
According to NASA, it will also showcase communication and navigation node capabilities, as well as precision landing technology.
NASA is collaborating with a number of US businesses to use the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to send science and technology to the lunar surface.
When Apollo 17, the last mission of the Apollo Program, landed on the moon in December 1972, it was the last US moon landing mission.
SWource:IANS
