The United States landed a module on the Moon for the first time in 50 years: It was not without problems (video)

Intuitive Machines’ Odyssey lander successfully landed on the Moon near the Malapert A crater, 300 km from the Moon’s South Pole. This is the first private lander to land on the Moon in human history. It was also the first American-made vehicle to make a soft landing on the surface of an Earth satellite since 1972, Space writes.

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The landing module “Odyssey” took off on Friday, February 23 at 1:54 Kiev time. However, only 2 hours after the landing, the company that developed the module reported that the module rose to a vertical position and started sending data to the Earth.

This is a historic landing for the United States because no American spacecraft has landed on the Moon since the Apollo lunar program ended in 1972. Now NASA, with the help of similar missions, is preparing for the future return of astronauts to the Moon in 2026 as part of the new lunar program Artemis.

However, landing on the Moon for the Odyssey module was not easy. The device reached Moon orbit on February 21 and spent the remaining time preparing for landing. To do this, it had to slow down using the onboard engine and eventually landed in the Malapert A crater region of the Moon, located 300 km from the South Pole.

However, 2 hours before landing, mission controllers detected a problem with the Odyssey landing module’s navigation devices. They did not work as they should. Therefore, it was decided to use NASA’s experimental device, one of the 12 landing payloads, to perform navigation tasks. Therefore, the module landed later than it should have according to plan. By the way, this experimental device was exactly what scientists from NASA wanted to test in real conditions on the Moon, since in the future they plan to use this technology for more accurate landings of both unmanned vehicles and manned spacecraft on the Earth satellite.

If all goes as planned, the lander and its payload will operate on the lunar surface for approximately seven days until the lunar day ends. A cold lunar night would follow, and the Odyssey lander was not designed to withstand very cold temperatures. We would like to remind you that day and night on the Moon last approximately 14 Earth days.

The Odyssey lander was sent into orbit by the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle on February 15. The module then went on an independent flight and had to fly approximately 1 million km to reach the Moon on February 21.

As for the South Pole of the Moon, where many landers have tried to land and where NASA astronauts will land in 2 years, this region is of great importance for future exploration of the Moon. Scientists believe there are large reserves of water ice from which the ingredients needed to create drinking water, oxygen for breathing, and rocket fuel can be obtained.

As I already wrote FocusAn astronaut took a perfect photo of the Egyptian pyramids from space on his last day on the ISS.

Moreover Focus He wrote that NASA showed what the inside of the spaceship where astronauts will go to the Moon in 2025 looks like.