The Odysseus lander, built by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, arrived near the lunar south pole at 6:23 p.m. ET. It is the first U.S. lander to park on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Further nail-biting minutes followed as engineers worked to establish that the craft had safely landed. Finally, the team detected a faint signal from the moon's surface. NASA intends to contract these companies to transport cargo and scientific equipment to the moon."These instruments will prepare us for future human exploration of the Moon under Artemis," the space agency wrote on X.
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