For the first time since 1972, a US-built spacecraft lands on the moon

For the first time in half a century, an American-built spacecraft has landed on the moon.

The robot lander was the first American vehicle on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, the final chapter in humanity’s astonishing feat of sending humans to the moon and bringing them all back alive. That’s a feat that hasn’t been repeated or even attempted since.

The lander, named Odysseus and slightly larger than a telephone booth, arrived at the moon’s south polar region at 6:23 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday.

Landing time came and went in silence as flight controllers waited for confirmation of success. A brief break in communication was expected, but minutes passed.

Then Tim Crain, chief technology officer at Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built Odysseus, reported that a weak signal from the spacecraft had been detected.

“It’s faint, but it’s there,” he said. “So hold on, folks. We’ll see what happens here.”

A short time later he announced: ‘What we can confirm without any doubt is that our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting. So congratulations.”

Later he added, “Houston, Odysseus has found his new home.”

But because the spacecraft’s ability to communicate properly was still unclear, the celebration of claps and high-fives in the mission control center was muted.

Later that evening, the company reported more promising news.

“After resolving communications issues, flight controllers confirmed that Odysseus is upright and beginning to transmit data,” Intuitive Machines said in a statement. “We are currently working to downlink the first images of the lunar surface.”

Although this venture was much more modest than the Apollo missions that led to astronauts walking on the moon, NASA hoped it could help usher in a more revolutionary era: transportation around the solar system that is economical when it comes to space travel.

“I think what NASA is trying to do is smart,” says Carissa Christensen, CEO of BryceTech, a space consulting firm, “which essentially wants to create a competitive ecosystem of providers to meet its needs.”

Intuitive Machines is one of several small companies NASA has hired to transport instruments that will conduct explorations on the lunar surface ahead of the return of NASA astronauts there, scheduled for later this decade.

For this mission, NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million under a program known as Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, to deliver six instruments to the moon, including a stereo camera aimed at capturing the blowing dust that was raised by Odysseus as it approached. the surface and a radio receiver to measure the effects of charged particles on radio signals.

There was also cargo from other customers, such as a camera built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and an art project by Jeff Koons. Parts of the spacecraft were wrapped in reflective material made by Columbia Sportswear.

Odysseus left Earth early on February 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket. On Wednesday it entered orbit around the moon.

The run-up to landing included last-minute shaking.

After the spacecraft entered lunar orbit, Intuitive Machines said it would land on the moon Thursday at 5:30 p.m. On Thursday morning, the company said the spacecraft had been moved to a higher altitude and would land at 4:24 p.m

On Thursday afternoon, the landing time changed again, with the company saying an additional lap around the moon would be required before the 6:24 p.m. landing attempt. A company spokesman said a laser instrument on the spacecraft that was supposed to provide altitude and speed data was not working.

The additional orbit provided two hours for changes to the spacecraft’s software to replace another experimental laser instrument provided by NASA.

At 6:11 p.m., Odysseus fired his engine to begin his motorized descent to the surface. The laser instrument seemed to serve as a suitable complement, and everything seemed to work until the spacecraft fell silent for several minutes.

The landing site for Odysseus was a flat area near the Malapert A crater, about 300 kilometers north of the moon’s south pole. The moon’s polar regions have attracted a lot of interest in recent years because of the frozen water hidden in the shadows of the craters there.

Getting to the moon has proven to be a difficult feat. With the exception of the United States, only the space programs of the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan have successfully placed robotic landers on the lunar surface. Two companies – Japan’s Ispace and Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology – had tried before and failed, as had the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL.

In an interview before the launch, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said he hoped NASA would stick with the moon-on-a-budget mentality even if Odysseus crashed.

“It’s the only way to really move forward,” he said. “That’s what this experiment is supposed to do.”

In the past, NASA would have built its own spacecraft.

Before Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, NASA sent a series of robotic spacecraft, Surveyor 1 through Surveyor 7, to validate landing techniques and investigate the properties of the lunar soil. Those robotic landings allayed concerns that astronauts and spacecraft would sink into a thick layer of particulate matter on the moon’s surface.

But when NASA designs and operates spacecraft itself, it typically tries to maximize the chances of success, and its designs are often expensive.

The Apollo moon landings of 1969 to 1972 became a paradigm for a colossal program that tackled a problem that was virtually impossible to solve on a virtually unlimited budget – the proverbial moonshot – as CLPS seeks to harness the enthusiasm and ingenuity of budding entrepreneurs.

Thomas Zurbuchen, a former NASA science official who started the CLPS program in 2018, estimated that a robotic lunar lander designed, built and operated in the traditional NASA way would cost $500 million to $1 billion, or at least five times as much as the space needed by NASA. agency paid intuitive machines.

NASA hopes that capitalism and competition – where companies propose different approaches – will spur innovation and lead to new capabilities at lower costs.

But even if they succeed, these companies face uncertain business prospects and attract many customers outside of NASA and other space agencies.

“It’s not clear who those other customers might be,” Ms. Christensen said.

Intuitive Machines has contracts for two more CLPS missions, and other companies are expected to take their chances on the moon as well. Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company, is preparing for a second mission to take a robotic NASA rover to one of the shady areas where there may be ice. Firefly Aerospace, near Austin, Texas, has its Blue Ghost lander largely completed but has not yet announced a launch date.