On Thursday, the United States made contact with the moon’s surface again for the first time in more than half a century.
He said in a joint webcast with Texas-based company Intuitive Machines and commentators from NASA. Confirmed The unmanned six-legged robotic lander, named Odysseus, touched down at around 6:23 p.m. ET (11:23 GMT).
According to reports Reuters, some NASA research instruments reportedly landed a spacecraft in a crater named Malapart A near the moon’s south pole. NASA hailed the landing as part of its goal to send a squad of commercial spacecraft to the moon on scientific reconnaissance missions ahead of the astronauts’ return scheduled for later this decade. Before landing, Odysseus’ autonomous navigation system developed a problem, forcing engineers on the ground to announce an untested workaround at the 11th hour. In addition, radio disturbances were expected to re-establish communications with the spacecraft and determine its outcome approximately 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from Earth.
After new contact with the lander, its weak signal confirmed that Odysseus had landed, but controllers were uncertain about the lander’s status and direction.
“Our equipment is on the moon and transmitting. Congratulations to the IM team,” Intuitive Machines mission director Tim Crane told Operations Center. “Let’s see what more we can get out of it.”
Later in the evening, the company told X (formerly Twitter) that flight controllers “confirmed that Odysseus is now upright and beginning to transmit data.”
Thomas Zurbuchen, a former NASA chief scientist who oversaw the launch of NASA’s commercial lunar lander program, said the weak signal means the spacecraft may have landed near a crater or something that interfered with its antenna. He said it suggests something.
“In some cases, it’s just a rock or a large boulder that gets in the way,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Zurbuchen added that overall, the landing is “a major intermediate goal, but the goal of the mission is to do science and bring back pictures and things like that.”
NASA administrators also hailed Thursday’s landing as a “victory”, saying “Odysseus has taken the moon.”
NASA plans to continue its lunar mission, known as the Artemis program, with humans in 2026. These missions look toward the future goal of manned flights to Mars.
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/Natsumoto
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributor to Christian Headlines and host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast dedicated to sound doctrine and Biblical truth. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Alliance Theological Seminary.
