Closing summary
The US returned to the moon for the first time in more than half a century, when the privately-built spacecraft called Odysseus touched down today.
Confirmation of the landing came about 10 minutes after touchdown, as flight controllers scrambled to pick up communications. “I know this was a nail-biter but we are on the surface and we are transmitting,” said Stephen Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, the Texas-based company that designed and operated the lander. “Welcome to the moon.”
Here’s a recap of the Odysseus lander’s long journey:
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.
The lander, a 14ft (4.3 meter) hexagon-shaped craft with six legs, was 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. It’s also carrying some other stuff – including 125 of Jeff Koons’ miniature moon sculptures.
From the moon’s orbit, the lander used autonomous systems to determine the best spot to land, slowing itself down as it propelled toward the surface.
There were some unexpected glitches along the way –instead of using the primary navigation sensors as planned, the lander used a Lidar instrument provided by Nasa to guide its descent. The landing was delayed so that flight controllers could patch software.
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There’s still a lot we don’t know about the circumstances of Odysseus’s landing. Flight controllers will work to analyze communications and learn more about the descent, and whether the Odysseus will be able to carry on and complete its lunar missions.
– Guardian staff
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My colleague Richard Luscombe has more details here about Odysseus’s long journey:
The White House Office of Science and Technology has sent its congratulations:
Go Odysseus! We’re over the moon about the U.S.’ first lunar landing since 1972!
— White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (@WHOSTP) February 22, 2024
Congrats to @Int_Machines and @NASA's CLPS!
As @POTUS says, "With science, hope, and vision, there's not a damn thing we can't do as a country."
Welcome to the moon. https://t.co/J6K38We5wW
Here again, is the moment the flight controllers confirmed landing.
Calling it a touchdown! "We're on the surface of the Moon and we are transmitting". pic.twitter.com/7YXS1e4I8E
— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) February 22, 2024
More images are emerging of the control room staff in Torrance, California, as they anxiously monitored – and eventually celebrated – the Odysseus spacecraft’s journey from orbit to landing.
Employees of Scorpius Space Launch Company (SSLC) and their families and guests watching the landing from Torrance, California cheered as they heard news of the touchdown.
The lander used SSLC’s next-generation fuel tanks for the lunar mission.
This is a frame grab from Nasa, shows Scorpius Space Launch Company (SSLC) employees and guests reacting in Torrance, California. Photograph: NASA/AFP/Getty Images
Nasa and Intuitive Machines celebrate moon landing
Still, Nasa and Intuitive Machines will be celebrating the achievement.
Odysseus is the first American spacecraft to accomplish such a feat since 1972.
Your order was delivered… to the Moon! 📦@Int_Machines' uncrewed lunar lander landed at 6:23pm ET (2323 UTC), bringing NASA science to the Moon's surface. These instruments will prepare us for future human exploration of the Moon under #Artemis. pic.twitter.com/sS0poiWxrU
— NASA (@NASA) February 22, 2024
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The flight controllers aren’t done yet, of course. They’ll still work to glean more information, and confirm the circumstances of Odysseus’s landing, its current state, and whether it can achieve its objectives.
'Odysseus has taken the moon,' says Nasa
“What a triumph,” said Bill Nelson, Nasa’s administrator in a message following the landing.
“Odysseus has taken the moon. This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity.”
Today for the first time in more than a half century, the US has returned to the moon. Today for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company launched and led the voyage up there. And today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA’s Commercial partnerships. Congratulations to everyone involved in this great and daring quest at Intuitive Machines, SpaceX and right here at Nasa.
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Flight controllers are still working on getting more information.
Nonetheless, it seems like Odysseus is the first American-built mission to land on the moon in more than a half century.
The Odysseus is on the moon...
“We are on the surface,” said Stephen Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines. “Welcome to the moon. Odysseus has a new home.”
Note: a previous version of this post incorrectly attributed the quote to mission director Tim Craine.
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It is possible that the Odysseus has crashed… or that there’s a communication issue. Flight controllers are still trying to figure it out.
“We’re not dead yet,” was the call out from mission control.
We’re still standing by for confirmation. Controllers are going through the latest data that they’ve gotten from the lander. There’s possibly a communications glitch.
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We’ve reached the expected time of landing… but waiting for confirmation.
The “hazard disturbance avoidance” process has begun. The lander is 1000m away from the surface.
The lander is making autonomous decisions about where to land. We’re less than a minute away.
Odysseus lander close to touchdown
The mission director just called out three minutes till touchdown.
There will likely be a slight delay between when the lander makes contact with the surface, and when we will get confirmation. That delay could be as little as 15 seconds or several minutes.
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A reminder that there’s no human decisions being made about where to land. The autonomous system on the lander is scanning the surface for the best place to drop down.
The lander is feeding data to the scientists in the control room.
Everything seems on track so far, as the lander continues slowing itself down so that it can prepare for a vertical descent.
Odysseus in position to land
Odysseus has started its “powered descent initiative”, as it readies for a landing. The engine on the lander has started up, and it is slowing itself down. As it lowers, sensors on the it will look for a safe spot for a landing,
What's on board?
As an example of the mixed payloads that private space missions are taking, Nasa administrator, Bill Nelson said of today’s mission “Nasa scientific instruments are on their way to the moon, a giant leap for humanity as we prepare to return to the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century.”
He added “These daring moon deliveries will not only conduct new science at the moon, but they are supporting a growing commercial space economy while showing the strength of American technology and innovation.”
But it isn’t just science on board. There are also 125 of his miniature moon sculptures by the artis Jeff Koons. And as this social media post from Intuitive Machines shows, the lander is also carrying “an eternal tribute to His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj”.
Created in coordination with Relative Dynamics, the IM-1 mission is flying an eternal tribute to His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the fifth guru of the @BAPS Swaminarayan organization.
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 20, 2024
The etching honors the life and service of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, a Hindu spiritual leader… pic.twitter.com/4gEXthJykX
Why isn’t the landing a foregone conclusion? Well, “space is hard” as Nasa has tended to say. The recent track record of moon landing attempts is chequered to say the least.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission made a historic landing on the south pole of the moon in August 2023, after a 40-day journey, and the rover had spent over a week collecting data from the lunar surface, but was powered down after a few days.
Japan became only the fifth nation to achieve a soft lunar landing, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India, when it deployed its Slim moon lander in January 2024. After an initial scare when it was thought the probe had landed in such a way that its solar panels wouldn’t get enough light to power it, it began scientific operations.
The most recent US attempt to reach the moon ended in failure in January, when the spacecraft malfunctioned on the way to the moon and plunged back to Earth. That is gravity for you. A fuel leak onboard the Peregrine lander ended hopes it would reach the moon, despite a successful launch by the Vulcan Centaur rocket.
The Israeli Beresheet probe was meant to be the first private lander to touch down on the moon back in 2019, but it only succeeded in hitting the moon at sufficient speed that it may have spilled tardigrades on to the surface.
Why does it seem to be harder to successfully land on the moon these days than it used to be? Our science editor Ian Sample explains:
One fundamental challenge, says Jan Wörner, a former director general of the European Space Agency (Esa), is weight. “You are always close to failure because you have to be light or the spacecraft will not fly. You cannot have a big safety margin.”
Added to that, almost every spacecraft is a prototype. Apart from rare cases, such as the Galileo communications satellites, spacecraft are bespoke machines. They are not mass produced with the same tried and tested systems and designs. And once they are deployed in space, they are on their own. “If you have trouble with your car, you can have it repaired, but in space there’s no opportunity,” says Wörner. “Space is a different dimension.”
The moon itself presents its own problems. There is gravity – one-sixth as strong as on Earth – but no atmosphere. Unlike Mars, where spacecraft can fly to their destination and brake with parachutes, moon landings depend entirely on engines. If you have a single engine, as smaller probes tend to, it must be steerable, because there is no other way to control the descent.
To complicate matters, the engine must have a throttle, allowing the thrust to be dialled up and down. “Usually you ignite them and they provide a steady state thrust,” says Nico Dettmann, Esa’s lunar exploration group leader. “To change the thrust during operations adds a lot more complexity.”
Odysseus will use backup Lidar instrument during descent
Rather than using its own laser instrument as planned to guide its decent to the Moon’s surface, the Odysseus will instead use a Lidar instrument provided by Nasa.
The lander’s extra orbit around the moon, which delayed its descent today, allowed for controllers up update software to allow for the use of the Nasa instrument.
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For years space exploration have been a state enterprise, but a new program from Nasa has opened the doors to private enterprise. Today’s landing attempt is one of a fleet of private spacecraft bound for the moon in the next few years. Under Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) initiative, the agency is funding firms to build spacecraft and deliver cargo – along with payloads from other paying organisations – to various sites on the lunar surface.
The arrangement is a way to ferry equipment to the moon before astronauts return there later this decade. But this new era of moon missions has some scientists rattled. Future landers aim to drill for ice and other materials, potentially iron and rare earths, which are of interest to mining firms, but might do damage to sites of scientific interest, or interfere with scientific experiements on the moon that rely on its isolation and contamination free environment.
The problem is that no one is coordinating plans. And as more landers touch down, and more companies invest, it will become harder to thrash out a fair and trusted process whereby all countries and all sectors can pursue their aims without messing things up for others.
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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
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
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 17, 2024
Odysseus set for 6.24pm ET/11.24pm GMT landing
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.
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Intuitive Machines' Odysseus aims to land on the moon
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 …
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