Summary The lunar lander Odysseus, developed by the private Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, has landed on the lunar surface. This is the first private vessel to do so. Odysseus is the first lunar lander that the Americans have sent since the Apollo program in the 1970s. NASA hopes that this could be the start of a long-term base on the moon. This was the second attempt at a private lunar landing after a failed attempt earlier this year. Odysseus landed at the planned location, in a crater called Malapert A, located 300 kilometers from the moon’s south pole. The area is believed to contain ice, which could become a valuable resource for future human missions. The summary is made by an AI service from OpenAi. The content is quality assured by news’s journalists before publication. Odysseus is an unmanned lunar lander of the Nova-C type, developed by the private Houston-based company Intuitive Machines. It is 4 meters high and 1.57 meters wide, about the same size as a British telephone booth. The vessel weighs 675 kilograms. It was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 15. The lunar lander is the first that the Americans have sent since the Apollo program in the 1970s. Nasa hopes that the mission could be the starting point for a long-term base on the moon, where the Americans hope to collect ice for drinking water and rocket fuel under the new Artemis program. This was the second attempt to carry out a private lunar landing after an attempt earlier this year failed due to a fuel leak. It happened when the space probe Peregrine, produced by the private company Astrobotic Technology, was launched with a Vulcan rocket from the United Launch Alliance. The staff in the control room cheered when the landing was confirmed. Photo: AP Sørpolen – There is no doubt. Our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are receiving signals, said Tim Crain of Intuitive Machines when the landing was confirmed. A few nerve-wracking minutes passed before communication with the lunar lander was restored around the moment of landing, and at first only a weak signal came, which created uncertainty about the craft’s condition and location. But it all turned out to have gone according to plan. The robotic lander put its six legs on the moon’s surface at 00:23 on Friday night Norwegian time. According to a joint live webcast with Intuitive Machines and Nasa, the landing took place at the planned location, in a crater called Malapert A, located 300 kilometers from the moon’s south pole. Poland is believed to contain ice, which could become a very valuable resource for future human missions. Odysseus is expected to be operational for a week before the lunar night descends over the polar region. This image shows the lunar lander with Earth in the background. The photo was taken shortly after Odysseus had disconnected from the SpaceX launch vehicle to continue the rest of the trip to the moon on its own. Photo: AP First since 1972, Odysseus was launched from Cape Canaveral with a Falcon 9 rocket from the private company SpaceX on Thursday last week. Landing a craft near the south pole on the moon is no easy task and there are no guarantees that it will go well. Intuitive Machine’s CEO Stephen Altemus had previously estimated the chance of success at 80 percent. – I know this was nail-biting, but we are now on the surface and we are receiving signals. Welcome to the moon, Altemus said as he also confirmed the landing. Odysseus is now the first lunar lander from the United States to land on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The Houston-based company works closely with Nasa. But even though Nasa is co-sponsoring the Odysseus lunar lander, most of the project is led by Intuitive Machines. Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have managed to land soft on the moon. China has been to the moon three times since 2013, India in 2023 and last month it was Japan’s turn. Intuitive Machines does not give up on this one mission. Next month, the company plans to send up a new lunar lander that will drill for resources around the moon’s south pole.
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Odysseus has landed on the moon – America’s first moon landing in over 50 years – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
