First Commercial Moon Landing Returns U.S. to Lunar Surface

For the first time since 1972, a spacecraft launched from the United States landed gently on the surface of the moon. And, for the first time, this successful extraterrestrial landing was produced by a spaceship built and operated by private industry rather than a government space program.

At 6:23 p.m., a 14.1 -feet high, a police stand on stilts went down to the surface of the moon on a blue flame in rocket exhaust. A few seconds later, the six feet of the landing met in the dark soil of Malapert A, a crater nestled deep in the southern latitudes of the moon.

This robotic journey, nicknamed Ulysses, carries six useful scientific charges in the name of NASA. But above all, the American space agency does not manage the mission: Ulysses is the first commercial spaceship to land safely on another celestial body.

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Ulysse was built and operated by intuitive machines, a private company flights based in Houston, as part of the company’s IM-1 mission. In addition to NASA equipment, Ulysse offers useful charges of private customers that range from a group of sculptures from artist Jeff Koons to a robotic “selfie” camera built by students from the embryiddle aeronautical university.

And like his namesake from ancient Greek epics, Ulysses was faced with tests while he was sailing towards the lunar surface. A few hours before landing, two lasers aboard the mounting that Ulysses had planned to use to detect the surface of the moon broke. In response, intuitive machines have improvised a software correction which allows Ulysses requisition two lasers aboard a payload of experimental navigation built by NASA.

For more than 15 minutes after the touch, the control of the mission of intuitive machines in Houston, Texas, waited in a tense silence, while the flight controllers were trying to establish contact with Ulysses. “Signs of life – We have a return signal that we follow,” joked Tim Crain, director of the technology of intuitive machine technology. “We are not yet dead either.”

A few minutes later, Crain confirmed that Ulysse transmitted from the surface of the moon, although weakly. To the press, the reason for the weakness of the signal is not clear.

IM-1 is the first American mission to touch gently on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. And unlike IM-1, Apollo 17 was equipped. The last gentle robotic landing of the country on the moon took place in January 1968, with the touch of Nasa Lander Surveyor 7.

“Ulysses took the Moon,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson in a pre -recorded congratulations message. “This feat is a giant jump forward for all humanity.”

The mission also performs some first techniques. The main engine of the spacecraft – which burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen – is the first of its kind to be used in an landing on the moon. IM-1 also marks the most southern moon landing ever finished. The Lunar Landder of the Chandrayaan-3 mission of India, the first in this general region, addressed 69 degrees of southern latitude, which on earth would be like landing on the Antarctic peninsula. IM -1, however, is seated more than 80 degrees of southern latitude – the lunar equivalent of the interior of the deep Antarctic.

The instruments aboard the NASA of IM-1 will provide the first in situ measures of this prohibited environment, where the extreme angle of the sun on the horizon can create huge oscillations in surface temperatures, as well as in exposure to the “solar wind” of the charged particles which are continuously extinguished by our star. These data will include crucial radio measures which will capture some of the solar wind interactions with the surface of the moon.

NASA targets the lunar southern pole because certain global shadow regions contain water ice – a key resource for long -term human stays on the moon. For the agency Artemis III Mission, which will be launched at the earliest 2026, NASA has passed a contract with SpaceX to win a crew of two people near the South Lunar pole.

“”[IM-1] is a technological demo, if you wish, but it will get our first data on the environment of the South Pole of the Moon. This will be critical for the design of systems to allow humans to survive and prosper there, “explains Clive Neal, lunar scientist of the University of Notre-Dame.

Perhaps the greatest contribution of IM-1 is the previous one he establishes for the future of spatial exploration. For decades, space had been considered the competence of a handful of government agencies. But thanks to the fall in launch costs and the regular march of technological progress, it is now cheaper than ever for countries and private companies to build and exploit spaceships – and even send them to interplanetary destinations.

“”[IM-1 is] A business development basin in the United States, “said Neal.

High risk, high reward

At 1:05 a.m. on February 15, IM-1 was launched at the top of one of the Falcon 9 rockets in SpaceX from Kennedy Space Center in NASA in Florida. In the coming days, Ulysses has traveled a total of more than a million kilometers (621,000 miles) to fit into the lunar orbit, which he managed on February 21. The aggressive should operate on the surface of the moon up to seven days before succumbing to the darkness and the brutal cold of the lunar night.

The mission is stealing under the banner of the commercial initiative of Lunar Payers Services (CLP) of NASA, which has encouraged private investments in lunar missions since its foundation in 2018. By virtue of the CLP, the agency has attributed private contracts to deliver NASA equipment and scientific instruments to the surface of the Moon. So far, 14 companies have joined the program, which promises to pay up to $ 2.6 billion for delivery services until 2028.

Unlike traditional NASA programs, the space agency does not have and does not use CLPS spacecraft – companies do it. In return, NASA hopes to obtain lower costs and a higher rate of missions. To date, NASA has paid intuitive machines $ 118 million under the contract which created IM -1 – less than the agency has spent on robotic moor in the past. And IM-1 is the second up to five clps missions that could end up launching this year.

That said, CLPS companies received a steep hill to climb. Historically, only five out of nine moon missions have succeeded, even among those of well -funded government space agencies. In August 2023, the mission of the Russian Moon Luna-25 crashed in the lunar surface after an engine failure. In January, a Japanese lunar lunar known as Slim (Lander Intelligent to investigate the moon) attracted in complete safety but from an unexpected angle, which limited its ability to collect solar energy.

And in exchange for lower costs and more missions, NASA has taken on a higher risk than any CLPS mission would fail. Since the creation of CLPS, NASA officials have warned that Even a 50% success rate of the mission was acceptable to the program.

So far, this prediction has spread. In January, the company based in Pittsburgh, Astrobotic, attempted the first mission under CLP, Peregrine Mission 1. Shortly after the launch, however, the peregrine spatial of Astrobotic has entered a propellant leak. The company managed to keep the landing alive in space for a week and a half, but the mission ended with burning peregrin in the earth’s atmosphere.

“”[NASA] Whereas a failure rate of around 50%, and one for two is this rate, “explains Laura Pre -Ferm, Executive Director of the Astralytical Space Industry Consulting Society.”[IM-1 proves] that there is a capacity for commercial landing to land safely on the surface of the moon at a lower cost. »»

Peregrine and IM-1 are only the first of a future wave of commercial moon missions with increasingly ambitious objectives. As soon as later this year, Astrobotic is at the pressure to deliver Viper (volatiles investigating Polar Exploration Rover), a water hunting rover built by NASA, at the Lunar South Pole. The next IM-2 mission of intuitive machines, also scheduled for later this year, will deliver Prime-1 (Polar Resources Mining Experiment 1), a NASA exercise designed to dig into the subsoil of the Moon.

“These initial missions are more test missions,” explains Forczyk. “We want to make sure that technology is proven and ripe before putting useful loads with higher issues on board.”