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NASA on Thursday returned to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years with the help of Houston-based company Intuitive Machines.
The unmanned lunar lander Odysseus, built and operated by Intuitive Machines, touched down on the moon Thursday at approximately 6:23 p.m. ET, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon.
However, at that moment, communication with the mission controller suddenly stopped. There was a tense atmosphere in the NASA livestream control room.
You can watch this historic and heartbreaking moment in the video below.
The lander sent a ping to Earth indicating it was still alive and intact, allaying some fears, but mission controllers still could not receive data from the lander about its status.
“We’re not dead yet,” mission director Tim Crane said on a NASA livestream of the landing. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Still, Intuitive Machines and NASA declared it a success, and Crane said the lander is alive, although all signs point to a communications failure.
“It’s a great effort. I know it’s been a challenge, but we’re on the surface and communicating. Welcome to the moon,” said Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus. He spoke at
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander beamed back its first images from space earlier this month.
intuitive machine
This landing will catapult the United States into the 21st century space race.
the US fell behind
Despite landing on the moon for the first time in 1969, NASA has not returned anything to the surface until well into the 21st century.
The moon photographed by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.
NASA/JPL/USGS
Unlike China, India, and Japan, the United States had not launched anything to the moon in more than 50 years.
In January, NASA collaborated with Astrobotic in an effort to launch the Peregrine mission to the moon.
However, the lander was unable to land as a defective valve caused a fuel leak, forcing the mission to be aborted mid-flight.
Fortunately, NASA was already planning its next attempt.
Through a $118 million contract, the agency sponsored Intuitive Machines to launch its first mission, called IM-1, to the moon early Thursday morning.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Joe Skipper/Reuters
Nova-C, called Odysseus, is a hexagonal cylinder approximately 14 feet tall and 5 feet wide. If it still works and communications are restored, NASA will have the opportunity to study the moon’s surface using its six scientific instruments, including testing a mini radio telescope.
Intuitive Machines captured images of the Odysseus lunar lander taking off from Earth.
intuitive machine
With a few exceptions, this is NASA’s model for future deep space exploration. The idea is to contract with a commercial entity to do the hard engineering, and then get into the science of it.
But with this strategy, NASA had yet to reach the moon’s surface until Thursday. Still, a lot could have gone wrong, and it’s not clear what exactly happened.
Moon’s graveyard of failed spacecraft is expanding
A new crater on the moon discovered by a NASA spacecraft. It is likely that it was created when a Russian lunar lander crashed.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University
A successful moon landing is extremely difficult. India achieved this feat years after it crashed on its first attempt, and days after Russia’s attempt and crash.
In January, Japan joined India in joining the ranks of 21st century moon travelers, but its probe landed upside down.
Images from one of the spacecraft show that the SLIM spacecraft landed at an odd angle.
JAXA/Takara Tomy/Sony Group/Doshisha University/Reuters
Even that was a kind of relief from previous failures. Less than a year ago, the private Japanese company iSpace attempted to land its own moon landing, but it failed.
So many spacecraft have crashed on the moon that ispace isn’t even the first non-governmental company to do so. In 2019, the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL also crashed a spacecraft that was attempting to gently descend to the moon’s surface.
“Spaceflight is difficult. There are millions of things that have to go wrong, and if one thing goes wrong,” Trent Martin, Intuitive Machines’ vice president of space systems, said at a NASA press conference last month. There is also a possibility of failure.”
“I can’t say we’ve solved all the problems,” he added, “but we certainly have considered as much as we can the lessons we’ve learned over the last four or five years in various missions.” Attempted a surface landing. ”
Odysseus landed on the moon’s coveted south polar region
Additionally, NASA and Intuitive Machines aimed to get closer to the moon’s south pole, a place no one had been able to reach before. The region is coveted real estate as space nations race to build permanent bases on the moon.
The artist’s illustration depicts a NASA astronaut on the moon.
NASA (via AP)
That’s because if astronauts could mine frozen water from the permanently shadowed craters around the moon’s south pole, they could depart from the moon’s surface for Mars.
In theory, that water could allow NASA (or China or Russia) to make fresh rocket fuel on-site. However, the moon realm is first come, first served.
Until now, India was the only country to land on the moon’s south pole.