American lunar lander Odysseus 'alive and well'

American lunar lander Odysseus 'alive and well'

Spacecraft Odysseus passes over the near side of the moon following lunar orbit during the IM-1 mission on Feb 21, 2024. (Photo: Handout/Intuitive Machines/AFP)

WASHINGTON : As it prepared to retrieve data and photos from the unmanned robot, the corporation that constructed the first American spaceship on the Moon since Apollo declared Friday, February 22, that it was "alive and well" after a dramatic touchdown.

Odysseus, which is about the size of a huge golf cart, is upright, according to the corporation. This is good news because the Japanese space agency's SLIM lander wound up upside-down when it landed in January.

After a nerve-wracking final descent in which ground crews had to switch to a backup guidance system and it took several minutes to establish radio communication after the lander came to rest, Odysseus touched down near the lunar south pole on Thursday at 6:23 p.m. Eastern Time.

"Odysseus is alive and well," Intuitive Machines wrote on X on Friday morning, achieving the first private company lunar landing. "Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data."

The stock price of the Houston-based corporation surged by 40% in early trading before declining to 20%.

The landing phase was completed by the robot independently, using its instruments to explore the Moon's topography. Engineers are currently attempting to determine the robot's exact locations in the Malapert A impact crater and its tilt.

This frame grab from Nasa, shows the control room of Intuitive Machines as the Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lunar lander touches down on the moon. (Photo: NASA/AFP/Handout)

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The initial pictures captured by the lander would shortly be downlinked by Intuitive Machines, and after the gadget was fired out of Odysseus in the last moments of landing, "EagleCam," a camera, could soon reveal images from an exterior perspective

Odysseus is the first of a new fleet of NASA-funded lunar landers to successfully complete scientific missions in preparation for the Artemis program, which will bring American astronauts back to the Moon later this decade.

In order to gather ice for drinking water and rocket fuel for future missions to Mars, NASA and its international partners intend to build long-term habitats in the South Pole.

The stakes were raised to show that private enterprise has what it required to replicate a feat last accomplished by US space agency NASA during its manned Apollo 17 mission in 1972 after another American company's moonshot attempt last month failed.

Intuitive Machines' own navigation system failed, highlighting the technological difficulties of the mission; instead, Odysseus completed the last leg of his journey utilizing a NASA-developed experimental laser guidance system.

The landing was intended to be confirmed seconds after the milestone, but instead, broadcasters speculated for almost fifteen minutes about whether the hexagon-shaped ship had landed "off angle."

As cheers erupted in mission control, the company's chief technical officer, Tim Crain, finally verified, "our equipment is on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting".

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