Image: Intuitive Machines
NASA and Intuitive Machines’ lunar vehicle Odysseus was expected to touch down on the Moon today at 6:24PM ET and become the first successful US Moon landing since 1972’s Apollo 17 mission, and now mission control confirmed it is on the Moon and transmitting.
Odysseus began its journey to the Moon on February 15th after it hitched a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The mission, officially known as IM-1, is carrying scientific cargo to help NASA learn more about the Moon’s surface before NASA’s Artemis program brings people back to the Moon in 2025. It brings a laser retroreflector array to help other spacecraft make precision landings and a radio navigation beacon to provide geolocation data to landers, rovers, and eventually…