History has been made today, with the U.S returning to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
The Odysseus spacecraft has touched down on the moon’s South Pole after an eight-day 400,000 kilometre journey from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, where it was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Odysseus – a four metre tall six-legged lander known as IM-1 or “Odie” – was developed by Intuitive Machines, an American space exploration and infrastructure company, which has now become the first private company in history to land on the moon.
The last U.S space vehicle to land on the moon’s surface was Apollo 17 in 1972.
The company describes its mission as “creating a commercial lunar economy, delivering commercial payloads and NASA science and technology payloads that will pave the way for a sustainable human presence on and around the Moon.”
The lander is carrying 12 payloads of instruments for NASA and commercial companies. It’s designed to operate for seven days before the Sun sets on the landing site. Odysseus is not designed to survive the freezing cold of a lunar night, which lasts approximately two earth weeks. Temperatures at certain spots near the moon’s poles can fall as low as minus 250 degrees.
The Australian connection with the mission is the CSIRO’s iconic and heritage-listed Murriyang radio telescope at Parkes, otherwise known as the “Dish.”
Murriyang, immortalised in the movie “The Dish” also played a role in broadcasting footage from the first moon landing in 1969, although the world saw Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon – indeed, his first eight minutes and 50 seconds on the moon – via the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra.
Murriyang is scheduled to connect with Odysseus around 11 o’clock tonight when the moon rises in Australia.
The Odysseus mission is designed to assess the moon’s south pole environment ahead of NASA’s planned crewed mission there in late 2026.
