A spaceship belonging to a company in Texas, called Intuitive Machines, safely landed close to the moon’s south pole on Thursday. This is a big deal because it’s the first time in almost 50 years that an American spacecraft has landed on the moon. Plus, it’s the first time ever that a private company has done it.
NASA, the space agency, was really happy about the landing. They see it as an important step towards their goal of sending a bunch of private spacecraft to the moon for scientific missions. They want to do this before people go back to the moon later in this decade.
But, after the spaceship landed, there were some problems with communication. This made people worry that the spaceship, called Odysseus, might have been damaged or stuck. The spaceship had to go through a tricky descent, and there was a problem with its automatic navigation system.
Also, it took a while to talk to the spaceship again after it went into a radio blackout. This blackout happened when the spaceship was really far away from Earth, about 239,000 miles. When they finally heard from the spaceship again, the signal was weak. It confirmed that the spaceship had landed, but people at mission control weren’t sure about its exact condition or which way it was facing.
Tim Crain, the Mission Director at Intuitive Machines, said they had successfully landed on the moon. He told his team, “Our stuff is on the moon’s surface, and we’re sending signals, so great job, IM team. Let’s see what else we can find out.”
