The first US spacecraft to land on the Moon? Intuitive Machines launches robotic Odysseus on SpaceX Falcon 9

The first private company to land a spaceship on the Moon is Intuitive Machines. Following its launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last Thursday, the robotic Nova-C “Odysseus” lander built by Intuitive Machines has now touched down — also making it the first US spacecraft to successfully land on the Moon since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.

The company that built it was based in Houston. It took off from Florida. The private companies that NASA has used to purchase several of its lunar missions.

The space agency is paying a fixed price for this mission but it is still a bargain when you consider how much space exploration costs. NASA is using several experiments to study the environment around the landers and to develop new technologies for future landings.

Odysseus, Malapert and the Intuitive Machines: The Challenge of Landing Humans on the Moon

Odysseus will attempt to land near Malapert crater — a large crater near the moon’s south pole. The location gives several advantages, says a planetary scientist. The landing sites near the south pole experience continuous sunlight which is good for solar cells and is believed to be home to water in the form of ice.

She says water is important because it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to give you some breathing room. The two elements are “also components that you can use for rocket fuel.”

The United States may once again be able to land astronauts on the lunar surface, thanks to the help of the CLPS program. Commercial companies need to look for spots and land scientific instruments in order to begin human exploration.

Chris Quilty, co-CEO of Quilty Space, said that the commercial sector could be helped by the flight of the Intuitive Machines.

Among the commercial products on board is a space-age fabric from the sportswear manufacturer Columbia, a few pieces of private art and a small test of a system to securely back up data on the moon.

Chris Stott, the founder and CEO of Lonestar Data, an organization building data centers on the lunar surface, said that data was the most precious thing in technological civilization. Do we keep it here where we have the wars, storms, weather, network intrusion issues, or do we put it someplace else where there is no climate change? Where does there not appear to be an atmosphere?

A digital copy of the Declaration of Independence was retrieved from the lander by his company. The state of Florida is one of his future clients that wants to store a lot of data on the moon.

Before NASA can realize its ambitions and before your pictures can be backed up on a lunar hard drive, Odysseus has to stick the landing. And that’s not a given. Privately funded lunar missions from Israel and Japan have both crashed in recent years, and another NASA-backed mission from the company Astrobotic fell back to Earth in January after suffering a fuel leak.

In the 1960s and 1970s, lunar landings were successful, but according to Jonathan, they are still difficult.

Because there is no air on the surface, it is impossible for robotic missions like Odysseus to use parachutes. McDowell says Odysseus could very well crash, like many landers before it, but he says companies are learning from each mistake.

Source: Private company Intuitive Machines is set to land on the moon. Here’s what to know

The Odyssey: Failure of NASA’s Lunar Payload Services Program to Reach the Moon in the Lunar South Pole – a Journey with an Experiment

He says that they’re not failing ignorantly even when they fail. “With a certain amount of iteration and a few more tries, I’m confident that they can succeed.”

The Astrobotic Peregrine lander that was launched last month by the United Launch Alliance failed to reach the Moon.

Described by NASA as a “hexagonal cylinder” on six legs, the Nova-C Odysseus lander is carrying several science and research payloads for the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to collect important data about the Moon’s surface. It aimed for the lunar south pole, a region of particular scientific interest due to the occurrence of water ice hiding in permanently shadowed craters. Such data could prove useful before NASA’s Artemis program brings people back to the Moon in 2025.

The Odyssey took several photographs during it’s journey to the moon and selfies with the earth a day after it launched. One image taken by the lander’s Terrain Relative Navigation camera shows the Moon from approximately 100,000 kilometers (around 62,137 miles), later followed by a close-up shot of the Bel’kovich K crater.

It has an array of retroreflectors to help other spaceships make landings, as well as a radio beacon for navigation.