The Odysseus Lander Returns the U.S. to the Moon for the First Time in More Than 50 Years

In December of 1972, Eugene “Gene” Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the last two human beings to walk on the Moon. Apollo 17 was the longest lunar mission, clocking in at just over 12 and a half days, and it served as an end cap on humanity’s crewed operations on the Moon. You can see the story of that last Moon mission in Last Man on the Moon, streaming now on Peacock.

The United States hasn’t soft-landed anything on the Moon, human or machine, ever since. At least, that was true until yesterday, when the commercially built and operated Odysseus lunar lander successfully touched down near the Moon’s South Pole. NASA is working with commercial partners to put scientific missions on the Moon’s surface in advance of the Artemis program, which aims to return human astronauts to the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade.

As part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS), NASA provides funding to commercial companies in exchange for ferrying NASA payloads to the Moon. The companies in question have end-to-end responsibility for the missions themselves. They design and build the landers and they control the actual mission once it's off the ground.

For More on the Moon:
Japan’s SLIM Lunar Lander Is Still Alive, Despite Landing Upside-Down
NASA Laser Hit an Oreo-Sized Mirror on the Moon from Orbit
Watch Russia's Crashed Luna-25 Punch a New Crater into the Moon's Surface

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Lunar Lander Returns the U.S. to the Moon!

Simulated image of Odysseus landing on the Moon. Photo: Intuitive Machines/NASA

The launch comes on the heels of two recent landing attempts from other organizations. Astrobotic, another commercial company who received funding under CLPS recently attempted to put their Peregrine lander on the Moon and missed. A fuel tank problem during the flight made it impossible for the craft to touch down and it was sent back to Earth to be destroyed. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) put their SLIM lander on the Moon and achieved an incredible pinpoint landing, but they accidentally landed upside down. Landing on the Moon is hard.

The Nova-C class lunar lander from Intuitive Machines was the next lunar at-bat for the U.S. and for a commercial Moon landing. Intuitive Machines has at least three landing missions planned, all of which will use their Nova-C class lander. For IM-1, the lander was named Odysseus and is affectionately called Odie, for short.

After a beautiful launch and flawless journey, Odie arrived in lunar orbit on February 21, a day ahead of its planned landing. When it got ready to descend, however, mission controllers discovered that the lander’s laser range finders weren’t working. That meant the lander couldn’t see where it was or where it was going. Fortunately, Odie was carrying six NASA payloads, including the Navigation Doppler Lidar (NDL), designed specifically for precise velocity and range sensing.

Nova Control (Intuitive Machines’ name for their Mission Control center) worked up a quick software patch, beamed it to the lander, and turned on the NDL. That crisis averted, Odysseus made for the surface and touched down successfully on the rim of the crater Malapert A, about 190 miles from the Moon’s South Pole. That’s roughly the same region Artemis astronauts will be exploring in person, in coming years.

Despite the successful landing, it wasn’t an immediate celebration inside Nova Control. A communications issue during landing made it unclear if Odie was alive or not. After a few tense moments, mission director Tim Crain confirmed that Odysseus was on the ground and transmitting. The signal was faint, but it was there.

An update from Intuitive Machines this morning confirmed, “Odysseus is alive and well. Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data. The lander has good telemetry and solar charging. We continue to learn more about the vehicle’s specific information (Lat/Lon), overall health, and attitude (orientation).”

Getting onto the lunar surface was only the beginning. The payloads aboard Odysseus will operate on the Moon until the Sun sets on Odie, about two weeks from now. Sadly, Odie wasn’t designed to survive the lunar night and it’s incredibly unlikely that it will wake up after its two-week mission life. Already, the folks at Intuitive Machines are hard at work building IM-2 and IM-3. They’ve already pulled off one magic trick, here’s hoping they can repeat it.

NASA and Intuitive Machines are holding a press conference today at 5:00 P.M. ET with updated details about the status of Odysseus and its onboard instruments. After more than 50 years, the United States is back on the Moon!

Revisit the last time we went there in Last Man on the Moon, streaming now on Peacock.