INTUITIVE MACHINES' ODYSSEUS LANDER TOUCHES DOWN ON MOON.

After more than half a century, America finally made it back to the Moon, as Intuitive Machines's NOVA C-Lander, called Odysseus, touched down on the lunar surface near the South Pole:

Today, for the first time in half a century, America has returned to the Moon 🇺🇸.

On the eighth day of a quarter-million-mile voyage, @Int_Machines aced the landing of a lifetime.

What a feat for IM, @SpaceX & @NASA.

What a triumph for humanity.

Odysseus has taken the Moon. pic.twitter.com/JwtCQmMS2K

— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) February 23, 2024

Intuitive Machines is a participant in NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Programme, another contender being Astrobotic, which in January launched Peregrine, an attempt to reach the Moon that unfortunately failed due to an anomaly shortly after launch. Astrobotic will do a follow up later this year though with a second lander, Griffin.


After IM's confirmation that Odysseus was standing upright and sending data...

After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data.
Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 23, 2024

...photos failed to come through though. Apparently the camera didn't deploy during descent. I suppose IM's engineer right now are hard at work to solve that problem though. In any case, with this successful landing on the heels of Japans and India's lunar landers, it's clear that interest for our celestial neighbor is finally back to late 60s/early 70s levels, and hopefully we will finally see a Moon Base in the very near future!



MFBB.