Houston-based Intuitive Machines set to land Odysseus near lunar south pole on Thursday. Its marks first U.S. return to the moon in over 50 years and first controlled private landing in history. Watch here.
An American space mission that’s vying to make history is about to instruct its spacecraft to perform a crucial maneuver for its upcoming lunar landing.
Another private U.S. company took a shot at the moon Thursday, launching a month after a rival’s lunar lander missed its mark and came crashing back. NASA, the main sponsor with experiments on board, is hoping for a successful moon landing next week as it seeks to jumpstart the lunar economy ahead of astronaut missions. SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted off in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, dispatching Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander on its way to the moon, 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) away.