Intuitive Machines successfully lands on the moon

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For the first time in the history of space travel, a commercial landing on the moon was successful. The “Nova-C” lander from the US company Intuitive Machines touched down in the southern region of the Earth’s satellite on Friday night, as the US space agency Nasa announced. The landing maneuver had previously been commented on in a live broadcast from the mission headquarters. It is the first – albeit unmanned – US moon landing since the legendary “Apollo” missions more than 50 years ago. NASA boss Bill Nelson spoke of a “triumph”.

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“We can confirm without a doubt that our equipment is on the surface of the moon and that we are transmitting,” it said in a live stream from the Intuitive Machines control center around 20 minutes after the landing time at 12:23 a.m. German time. “Houston, ‘Odysseus’ has found a new home.”

“Today America returned to the moon for the first time in half a century,” said NASA CEO Bill Nelson. “On the eighth day of a quarter-million-mile journey, Intuitive Machines landed with flying colors. What a success for Intutive Machines, SpaceX and NASA. What a triumph for humanity. ‘Odysseus’ conquered the moon.”

It was not initially clear what condition “Nova-C” was in after landing. The control center said that initially only weak signals were received. They are working on getting stronger signals and finding out more about the exact condition of the lander.

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The “Nova-C” lander, nicknamed “Odysseus,” is about the size of an old-fashioned British phone booth, has aluminum legs, weighs about 700 kilograms and can carry about 130 kilograms of cargo. NASA has used a large part of it with research equipment and other material, while commercial companies have secured the rest for their projects. The US artist Jeff Koons also sent along 125 miniature sculptures made of stainless steel.

So far, several attempts by various companies have failed. Intuitive Machines is a private space company contracted by NASA. For the company, it is the first flight to the moon and even the first space mission ever. “Nova-C” was launched about a week ago from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida. The means of transport was a “Falcon 9” rocket from technology billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX.

The mission is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. With this program, the US space agency wants to collect as much knowledge as possible on its own way back to the moon comparatively cheaply and efficiently by awarding contracts for lunar landings to private companies and working with them. A total of around 2.6 billion dollars (around 2.4 billion euros) is budgeted for the CLPS program by 2028.

Temporary mission

The successful landing of “Nova-C” is the next level of success for private space companies that have already successfully launched rockets, satellites and even space tourists and astronauts into space. All that was missing was a moon landing.

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However, it is a temporary mission. Because “Odysseus” won’t be able to survive on the moon for long. Intuitive Machines assumes that the scientific instruments will be able to collect data for about seven days before the lunar night sets in at the South Pole and renders the lunar lander inoperable.

Moon landings are technically demanding

Intuitive Machines received around $77 million for the “Nova-C” mission. The company, based in Houston, Texas, was founded in 2013 by, among others, the US-Iranian entrepreneur Kam Ghaffarian, who is also behind the company Axiom Space, which has just sent astronauts to the International Space Station on a commercial mission.

Moon landings are considered to be technically extremely demanding and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned landings have turned out differently than hoped: The US company Astrobotic, based in Pittsburgh, sent off the “Peregrine” capsule in January – also part of NASA’s CLPS program. Shortly after takeoff, however, there were problems due to a malfunction in the propulsion system. The engineers managed to temporarily stabilize the capsule, but the goal of landing on the moon had to be abandoned. A few days later, “Peregrine” burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Shortly afterwards, the SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) lander from the Japanese space agency Jaxa touched down gently on the moon, but initially had problems with the energy supply. SLIM was only able to go into operation after days of power failure. This makes Japan the fifth country, after the USA, Russia, China and India, to successfully complete an unmanned landing on the moon. In April of last year, a Japanese company with a similar mission failed.