Private company's first spacecraft 'Odysseus' lands on lunar surface

‘Robotic Spacecraft Lander Odysseus’ of America’s private company ‘Intuitive Machines’ landed on the surface of the Moon on 23 February 2024. The name of this spacecraft that landed on the moon is Odysseus or Audi. ‘Odysseus’ also marks the first arrival of private space companies on the lunar surface.

Intuitive machines prepared the spacecraft:

• Odysseus, a spacecraft built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines of the United States, was launched from Earth on 15 February 2024.
• After almost 52 years, the United States' robotic spacecraft lander has landed on the surface of the moon. Since the last Apollo mission in 1972, no US-built spacecraft has now landed on the surface of the Moon.

Launched from Falcon 9 rocket:

• The spacecraft is scheduled to launch Odysseus on February 15, 2024, using SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
• It landed in a crater named Malapert A near the moon's south pole on 23 February 2024 at 4:30 am Indian time.

About Odysseus Lander:

• The spacecraft carried six NASA payloads to the Moon.
• Odysseus's lander module, named Nova-C. It has become the second module to land in the south pole region of the Moon after Chandrayaan-3 last year.
• Odysseus is a robotic lander with six legs.
• With this, Intuitive Machines (IM) – the commercial venture behind the Nova-C lander – has become the first private venture to make a successful landing on the lunar surface.
• The South Pole of the Moon is the same part near which India's Chandrayaan 3's Vikram Lander landed. There was also a malfunction in Odysseus's navigation system before landing. Despite this the landing was carried out.
• The spacecraft successfully touched down on the lunar South Pole. According to information received from NASA, the speed of the spacecraft had increased before landing. So Odysseus made an extra trip around the Moon.
• The CEO of Intuitive Machines is Steve Altemus.
• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has congratulated the space scientists associated with this through a video message.

Objective of Odysseus Mission:

• NASA aims to investigate the Moon's southern pole because the space agency believes that this is the best place to establish a future astronaut base.
• According to the US space agency, it had chosen this landing site for the first mission of Intuitive Machines. He wants to learn more about the Moon's environment and how communications work in this region.
• It is noteworthy that America is the only country that has sent humans to the surface of the Moon in 1972.