Odysseus, the private lander of the Texan company Intuitive Machine, landed on the Moon. Launched on February 15, Odysseus entered lunar orbit on February 21 after traveling one million kilometers. The moon landing maneuver went as planned. At first there were signal problems: after a few attempts with several antennas from Earth, the beep finally came from the lander. “We can confirm without a doubt that our vehicle is on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting,” said Flight Director Tim.
The Im-1 mission
The Im-1 mission thus achieved its objective. Before the success of Ulysses, there were the failures of Peregrine and Hakuto-R M1. The countries that have successfully landed their vehicles on the Moon are the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan. “Ulysses has a new home,” Intuitive Machine wrote on X. The moon landing took place near the Malapert A crater, about 300 kilometers from the lunar south pole. The crater has a diameter of approximately 69 kilometers and is located near the Malapert Massif, one of 13 sites considered for NASA's Artemis III mission. Odysseus is partly funded by the program launched in 2018 by NASA for commercial flights, Commercial Lunar Payload Services. It carries six NASA instruments whose objective is to collect data useful for planning future missions of the Artemis program, intended to bring astronauts back to the Moon.
The moon landing
Odysseus aims to study the lunar environment of the Moon's south pole as part of NASA's plan to carry a crew in late 2026. The spacecraft contains NASA science instruments. It took off last week from Florida to enter lunar orbit on Wednesday. The moon landing lasted about an hour. The lasers did not activate, but an experimental NASA instrument proved essential to carry out the operation.
Read also:
