A phone booth-size spacecraft called Odysseus, or IM-1, is set to take on a challenge no vehicle launched from the United States has attempted in more than 50 years: landing on the moon. The last time the US landed a spacecraft on the moon's surface was its robotic Surveyor 1 in 1966.
But the lunar landers of the 21st century, like Odysseus, are attempting to accomplish many of the same goals the US had during the space race at a small fraction of the price.
At the peak of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget comprised over 4% of all government spending. Today, the space agency’s budget is one-tenth the size, accounting for only 0.4% of all federal spending, even as it seeks to return American astronauts to the moon under the Artemis program.
NASA is attempting to drastically reduce prices by outsourcing the design of small, robotic spacecraft to the private sector through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. If the landing is successful, Odysseus will be the first commercial spacecraft ever to soft-land on the moon.
“We’re going a thousand times further than the International Space Station,” Intuitive Machines President and CEO Steve Altemus told CNN. “And then, on top of that, you set the target: Do it for $100 million when in the past it’s been done for billions of dollars.”
