Amerika has finally done it. 52 years after the landing of Apollo 17 on December 11, 1972, another US space probe has reached Earth's satellite. The unmanned landing module IM-1/Nova-C (nicknamed “Odysseus”) from the American space company “Intuitive Machines,” based in Houston, Texas, touched down on the south pole of the moon on Friday night at 12:25 a.m. Central European Time. But it took around 15 minutes until a signal from the four meter high, 1.6 meter wide and approximately 1,900 kilogram heavy cylindrical spacecraft reached the ground station and the flight director of Intuitive Machines was able to confirm the successful landing.
As soon as the news was in the room, cheers broke out among the scientists and the many observers in the control center of Intuitive Machines, who followed the landing approach using tables of numbers and curves on their monitors. The landing maneuver, which was initiated an hour earlier, was completely autonomous in the crucial phase. The flight engineers no longer had any influence on their lander.
The landing of Odysseus is also the first successful lunar landing ever by a private space probe. A private American moon mission was launched at the beginning of January. However, the “Peregrine” probe from Astrobotic Technology did not reach its destination. Shortly after takeoff, a leak occurred in one of the fuel tanks and disrupted the capsule's propulsion system, forcing the lander to be abandoned. A few days later, Peregrine burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. Odysseus's landing, on the other hand, was supposed to be a success. The hopes have been fulfilled.
The telephone booth-sized lander touched down in the southern region of the moon in flat terrain not far from the “Malapert A” crater. In recent days, Odysseus – the lander was launched seven days ago aboard a SpaceX “Falcon 9” launch vehicle from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida – has been feeding on elliptical orbits of the lunar surface. The actual landing maneuver began at an altitude of 100 kilometers and lasted about an hour. Analyzes will show in the coming hours whether all systems are functioning and the power supply is secured via solar modules.
After landing, Odysseus is expected to remain functional for approximately 14 Earth days, according to its manufacturers. A series of private and government experiments are planned. The American space agency NASA expects the data obtained to provide important insights for the manned moon landing planned in a few years as part of its Artemis program.
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