Odysseus moon landing live updates: first US lunar attempt in 52 years
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Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the latest attempt to successfully soft-land the very first private lander on our closest neighbor – the moon!
Last week SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted off in the middle of the US night from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center, dispatching Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander on its 230,000 miles (370,000km) journey.
Today the Odysseus lander is attempting to make the perilous descent. Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ aims to put its 14ft-tall, six-legged lander down just 186 miles (300km) shy of the moon’s south pole
Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have scored a lunar landing and no private business has yet done so. The US has not returned to the moon’s surface since the Apollo program ended more than five decades ago.
Stay tuned for what could be a nerve-racking ride …
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from launch pad LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center last week with the Intuitive Machines' Nova-C moon lander mission on board. Photograph: Gregg Newton/AFP/Getty Images
The uncrewed Nova-C lander built by Intuitive Machines launched on 15 February. Its scheduled touchdown near the moon’s south pole would be the first lunar landing of a US spacecraft since Nasa’s final Apollo mission in December 1972, and the first by a non-government entity.
“There have been a lot of sleepless nights getting ready for this,” Steve Altemus, the co-founder and chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in an interview before the mission. Altemus was formerly Nasa’s director of engineering and deputy director of the Johnson Space Center before founding his company of about 90 employees in 2013.
The lander is a 14ft (4.3 meter) hexagon-shaped craft with six legs, and is aimed towards a landing at crater Malapert A close to the lunar south pole. Odysseus is carrying a payload of six Nasa science instruments and technology demonstrations as part of the agency’s commercial lunar payload services initiative
A computer generated image issued by Intuitive Machines/Nasa of an artist’s impression of Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C Odysseus lander if it makes it to the moon. Photograph: Intuitive Machines/Nasa/PA
Intuitive Machines have been – in public – happy with the lander’s progress so far towards the moon.
It has successfully been sending images back to the Earth.
Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX's second stage on Intuitive Machines’ first journey to the Moon under @NASA's CLPS initiative. pic.twitter.com/9LccL6q5tF
The Odysseus is expected to land at 6.24pm ET/11.24pm GMT.
Intuitive Machines had initially said it would land at 5.49pm ET, then 5.30pm, and this morning said it could land even earlier at 4.24pm. But ultimately flight controllers decided to circle the Odysseus around the moon one more time before landing, delaying the event by two hours.
Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the latest attempt to successfully soft-land the very first private lander on our closest neighbor – the moon!
Last week SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted off in the middle of the US night from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center, dispatching Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander on its 230,000 miles (370,000km) journey.
Today the Odysseus lander is attempting to make the perilous descent. Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ aims to put its 14ft-tall, six-legged lander down just 186 miles (300km) shy of the moon’s south pole
Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have scored a lunar landing and no private business has yet done so. The US has not returned to the moon’s surface since the Apollo program ended more than five decades ago.
Stay tuned for what could be a nerve-racking ride …
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from launch pad LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center last week with the Intuitive Machines' Nova-C moon lander mission on board. Photograph: Gregg Newton/AFP/Getty Images
