United States Launches Private Moon Lander

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C moon lander, Odysseus, was launched from Florida on Thursday to achieve the first U.S. lunar touchdown in over half a century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.

Launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, the 25-story rocket was flown by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The live NASA-SpaceX internet video stream captured the two-stage, 25-story rocket soaring into the dark sky over Florida’s Atlantic coast.

The launch of the Intuitive Machines mission IM-1, a NASA mission, was postponed for 24 hours due to irregular temperatures in liquid methane used in the lander’s propulsion system.

The flight, which is carrying six NASA payloads, is intended to gather data about the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s planned return of astronauts to the moon later this decade.

If successful, it would be the first controlled descent to the lunar surface by a U.S. spacecraft since the final Apollo crewed moon mission in 1972, and the first journey under NASA’s Artemis moon program.

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