Kaynak, INTUITIVE MACHINES
23 February 2024, 05:36 +03
Updated 12 minutes ago
The spacecraft called Odysseus, developed by the American company Intuitive Machines, successfully landed on the surface of the Moon.
Odysseus made history as the first spacecraft sent to the Moon by a private company. The USA also made its first trip to the Moon 52 years after the Apollo mission in 1972.
For this reason, Odysseus’s landing on the Moon was recorded as an important moment not only for the commercial use of space, but also for the US space program in general.
The company, headquartered in Houston, Texas, landed the Odysseus robot on the south pole of the Moon.
Flight director Tim Crain confirmed the landing of the spacecraft, saying, “Our vehicle is on the lunar surface and we are in communication.”
Crain’s words were received with enthusiasm among company employees.
After Odysseus’ landing, there was no confirmation signal from the robot at first. Controllers had to wait several minutes for the signal they would receive. This received signal was also weak.
This is likely to raise some concerns about the condition of the lander. It was stated that the engineers involved in the mission will continue their evaluation of what exactly happened by reviewing the data and will check whether Odysseus is standing upright and collecting energy properly through solar cells.
The targeted landing site was land near the Malapert-A crater. Located at 80 degrees South, this region is the southernmost point of the Moon ever visited by a spacecraft.
There is no crew on the spacecraft.
The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) keeps six scientific equipment on Odysseus.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson expressed his congratulations on this event, which he described as a “victory”.
“The USA returned to the Moon,” said Nelson, adding, “Today, for the first time in human history, a commercial company – an American company – traveled to the Moon. “Today is a day that demonstrates the power and promise of NASA’s commercial partnerships,” he said.
The vehicle will focus on research examining the behavior of lunar dust. This was a probe that previously Apollo astronauts viewed as a serious problem, scratching and clogging their equipment.
American artist Jeff Koons also placed a box on the side of the lander containing 125 small stainless steel balls to represent the different phases of the Moon over the course of a month.
Odysseus, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, was launched on February 15 with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
This initiative aims to support NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts back to the Moon and even build a permanent base there.
In January, the spacecraft named Peregrine, sent by the US company Astrobotic, could not reach the Moon due to fuel leakage and the mission ended in failure.
photo caption,
Malapert-A krateri
Along with the USA, Russia, China, Japan and India continue their Moon research.
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that the unmanned spacecraft named SLIM made a successful soft landing on the Moon on January 20.
However, the vehicle was put into sleep mode due to a problem with the solar cells.
2024-02-23 02:38:16
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