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What simply occurred? Odysseus has turn out to be the primary US spacecraft to land on the lunar floor in additional than 50 years, marking the primary time a business lander has reached the floor of the moon. The final time a US spacecraft touched down on the lunar floor was in 1972 when Apollo 17 landed with astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.
In line with NASA, the hexagonal lander touched down close to the lunar south pole at round 6:23 p.m. ET (23:23 GMT) on February 22 following a tense remaining descent throughout which lasers meant to find out horizontal velocity and altitude stopped working, forcing floor controllers to change to an untested NASA Doppler LIDAR touchdown system that was initially meant to be an in-flight expertise demonstration.
Odysseus launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy House Middle in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 15, earlier than sending its first images from area the next day. The smooth touchdown on Thursday makes it the primary American non-government lander to efficiently contact down on the moon. It’s the second non-public lunar mission this yr after the primary one resulted in failure final month.
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 floor. These devices will put together us for future human exploration of the Moon beneath #Artemis. pic.twitter.com/sS0poiWxrU
– NASA (@NASA) February 22, 2024
Dubbed “IM-1,” the newest US lunar mission is led by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, however is partly funded by NASA as a part of its efforts to land a sequence of uncrewed business robots on the moon earlier than resuming crewed flights to Earth’s solely pure satellite tv for pc later this decade. The profitable touchdown is being hailed as a major step in direction of NASA’s future plans.
In line with Intuitive Machines, the Odysseus lander is a “Nova-C” spacecraft that is roughly the dimensions of an old style phone sales space. It’s outfitted with six NASA payloads that embody scientific devices to guage the lunar atmosphere, together with supplies to review how the moon’s soil behaves throughout touchdown. The vessel is predicted to function for seven days beneath daylight earlier than being put to sleep because the touchdown zone strikes into Earth’s shadow.
It’s price noting right here that the IM-1 was the second non-public mission to the moon this yr following a failed try final month, when a non-public firm referred to as Astrobotic unsuccessfully tried to land the Peregrine lander on the lunar floor. Investigations revealed that the mission failed as a consequence of a gasoline leak.
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