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Image: Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines has just made history by becoming the first private aerospace company to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface. Following its launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last Thursday, the robotic Nova-C “Odysseus” lander built by Intuitive Machines has now touched down — also making it the first US spacecraft to successfully land on the Moon since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.
It was expected to land at about 6:24PM ET and now mission control confirmed it is on the Moon and transmitting.
Described by NASA as a “hexagonal cylinder” on six legs, the Nova-C Odysseus lander is carrying several science and research payloads for the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to collect important data…