US Private Company's Spacecraft IM-1 Enters Moon Orbit, Prepares for Landing

The lander of the US private space company Intuitive Machines entered the moon's orbit yesterday, becoming the first private spacecraft in history to apply to land on Earth's natural satellite. 

The US will land on the moon for the first time in 50 years after Apollo 17, during which NASA scientists set foot on the lunar land in 1972.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines said its six-legged Nova-C lander, also called Odysseus, entered a circular orbit 57 miles (92 km) above the lunar surface after firing its engines for seven minutes during a manoeuvre.

If the mission's expectations are fully met, the spacecraft will gradually reduce its circle over the next few hours and land in the Malapert A crater near the lunar south pole on Thursday night. 

"Odysseus remains "in excellent health," the company said, adding that during its lunar orbit about 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from Earth, mission controllers in Houston will monitor flight data from the spacecraft and transmit images of the moon.

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft was launched on 15 February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The current mission will also be the first-ever "soft landing" on the Moon by a private company as part of NASA's Artemis lunar programme.

The United States is trying to get its experts back to the Moon before China lands its own people and spacecraft there.

Flight IM-1 is carrying six NASA instruments designed to collect data on the lunar environment ahead of NASA's planned first crewed Artemis mission to the moon later this decade.

This mission was launched almost a month after another Astrobotic Technology lunar lander encountered a malfunction on its way to the moon, shortly after being launched on 8 January by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket on its debut flight.

The malfunction of Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, which also delivered NASA equipment to the Moon, was the third time a private company has failed to land on the Moon.

Such a failure fuels the risks that NASA faces as it relies more on the commercial sector than it has in the past to realise its spaceflight goals.

Intuitive Machines was co-founded in 2013 by former NASA deputy director Steven Altemus, who is now the company's CEO.