{"id":18572,"date":"2024-02-23T08:23:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T08:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=18572"},"modified":"2024-02-23T08:23:56","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T08:23:56","slug":"us-pulls-off-first-moon-landing-since-1972-with-spacecraft-odysseus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2024\/02\/us-pulls-off-first-moon-landing-since-1972-with-spacecraft-odysseus\/","title":{"rendered":"US pulls off first moon landing since 1972 with spacecraft Odysseus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; The United States has pulled off its first lunar landing in more than half a century with a spacecraft built and operated by a Texas-based private company.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Odysseus, an uncrewed robot lander built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines with funding from NASA, touched down near the lunar south pole at around 23:23 GMT, the company announced in a webcast on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The successful landing followed a tense final descent during which flight controllers had to switch to an untested landing system after a problem arose with the spacecraft\u2019s autonomous navigation system, according to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<p>NASA administrator Bill Nelson described the landing as a \u201ctriumph for humanity\u201d and a \u201cnew adventure in science, innovation and American leadership in space\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, for the first time in half a century, the US has returned to the Moon,\u201d Nelson said in a video posted on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday for the first time in the history of humanity, a commercial company, an American company, launched and led the voyage up there. And today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA\u2019s commercial partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Intuitive Machines\u2019 mission, the first successful lunar landing by a private firm, follows a failed bid by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology last month that ended with its lander crashing back to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>The last time a US spacecraft landed on the moon was in 1972 when Apollo 17 brought astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt to the lunar surface, Al Jazeera reported.<\/p>\n<p>Only four countries apart from the US have successfully landed on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Japan last month became the fifth country to achieve the feat when it landed its so-called \u201cMoon Sniper\u201d spacecraft on the lunar surface, following in the footsteps of the former Soviet Union, China and India.<\/p>\n<p>Odysseus launched from Florida on February 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The hexagon-shaped craft carried NASA\u2019s scientific instruments, including cameras and a device to analyse clouds of charged dust particles, and cargo shipped on behalf of private clients, including the latest insulating jacket fabric produced by Columbia Sportswear.<\/p>\n<p>Odysseus, which is solar-powered, is expected to operate for a week on the surface of the moon before the lunar night renders the lander inoperable.<\/p>\n<p>ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MONITORING (SW) &#8211; The United States has pulled off its first lunar landing in more than half a century with a spacecraft built and operated by a Texas-based private company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":18573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,1,194,982,351,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-0_swnen","category-world","category-international","category-science-technology","category-headline"],"views":28,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18574,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18572\/revisions\/18574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}