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US Spacecraft Back On Moon After 50 Years

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

HOUSTON, USA (Worthy News) – A spacecraft built and flown by Texas-based Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in over 50 years and the first ever by a private company.

The uncrewed six-legged robot lander, dubbed Odysseus, landed near the moon’s south pole at about 6:23 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), but a weak signal back saw flight controllers scrambling to gain better contact.

The news was confirmed by Intuitive Machine’s chief executive Steve Altemus and NASA, the U.S. space agency. “I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the on the surface, and we are transmitting. Welcome to the moon,” Altemus said.

The company behind the mission confirmed that poor communications had complicated the moon landing. “We’re evaluating how we can refine that signal,” stressed mission director Tim Crain.

However, “Without a doubt, our equipment is on the surface of the moon, and we are transmitting,” he hastened to add. “Congratulations, [Intuitive Machine] IM team, we’ll see how much more we can get from that.”

Tension initially mounted in the company’s Houston command center following the designated touchdown time as controllers awaited a signal from the spacecraft some 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

After close to 15 nail-biting minutes, joy returned to the team as they received a weak signal from the lander.

LEAVING LUNAR LANDSCAPE

The reported moon landing came decades after the U.S. left the lunar landscape in 1972 following NASA’s Apollo program that put 12 astronauts on the surface.

Astrobotic of Pittsburgh gave it a shot last month but was derailed by a fuel leak that resulted in the lander plunging back through Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.

Intuitive Machines’ target was 186 miles (300 kilometers) shy of the south pole, around 80 degrees latitude, and closer to the pole than any other spacecraft has come, officials said. The site is relatively flat but surrounded by boulders, hills, cliffs, and craters that space experts claim could hold frozen water.

The lander was programmed to pick, in real-time, the safest spot near the so-called Malapert A crater.

Launched last week, the six-footed carbon fiber and titanium lander — towering 14 feet (4.3 meters) — carried six experiments for NASA. The space agency gave the company $118 million to build and fly the lander, part of its effort to commercialize lunar deliveries ahead of the planned return of astronauts to the moon in a few years.

It comes amid a broader space race. Only the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan have successfully put landers on the moon’s surface. Japan’s “SLIM” lander was only partially successful, tipping over on touchdown on January 19.

However, Russia’s first moon mission in 47 years failed last year when its Luna-25 spacecraft spun out of control and crashed into the moon after a problem preparing for pre-landing orbit. It underscored the post-Soviet decline of a once mighty space program in Russia, which has been hit by Western sanctions over its war in Ukraine.