US makes its first moon landing since 1972

In a historic moment, the US made its first successful moon landing in more than 50 years yesterday. Houston-based Intuitive Machines’s (IM) Odysseus lander made contact with the southern lunar pole at 6:23 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, a week after its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

What’s next?
The lander aims to explore the lunar south pole region, particularly near Malapert A, an area suspected to contain water ice.

Odysseus also carries six science payloads from NASA laboratories and commercial contributions such as insulation material from Columbia Sportswear and a sculpture by artist Jeff Koons.

Budget race to the moon
NASA wants the Artemis mission to be a success. But unlike the Apollo missions, the space agency is looking at private companies and start-up entrepreneurs to achieve the goal as it is significantly cheaper.

NASA is paying IM $118 million for Odysseus. It could have cost up to $1 billion if the space agency were to lead the mission, points out Thomas Zurbuchen, who leads the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). The Odysseus mission is part of the CLPS program.

IM has already secured two more CLPS missions. Its stocks have soared 300% since last month.

The win comes at a time when NASA’s Artemis program, aimed at returning astronauts to the moon, has faced delays. Commercial spacecraft partnerships could bolster US lunar efforts amid increasing competition. 

In the past six months, India and Japan have made lunar soft landings, with the former spending just $75 million to land its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the Moon.