Odysseus becomes first US spacecraft to land on moon in over 50 years

Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the Odysseus spacecraft under contract with NASA, estimates it has about an 80% chance of safely landing on the moon, according to CEO Stephen Altemus.

One advantage is that the company bore witness to some previous, failed attempts, he said.

Even NASA isn't expecting a 100% success rate for these early missions, which are carried out under the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.

“We've always viewed these initial CLPS deliveries as being kind of a learning experience,” said Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, during a February 13 briefing. “We knew going into this … we didn't believe that success was assured.”

Odysseus is expected to spend about seven days operating on the lunar surface before the landing site is plunged into lunar night, with cold temperatures rendering the spacecraft inoperable.

Tucked on board are six NASA science instruments, many of which were designed to collect data during Odysseus’ descent.

That's not all that's on board: "Odie" also packed art and commemorative objects for its journey.

Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company behind the Odysseus lunar lander, has moved the projected landing time yet again.

It's now 6:24 p.m. ET, according to an update on X.

The company announced that it opted to make one more lap around the moon before making its nail-biting swoop down to the surface.

That puts the landing two hours later than Intuitive Machines had most recently shared. The company has acknowledged the exact timing would be subject to change.

A livestream of the event is now expected to start at 5 p.m. ET.

Only a handful of countries have successfully landed vehicles on the moon in the more than 50 years since the United States and the Soviet Union achieved that milestone in 1966.

China, India and Japan all reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat just within the past six months.

Now, the US Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, will attempt to land on the moon on Thursday.

Here is where India's Chandrayaan-3 (2) and Japan's SLIM (3) landed compared to where Odie is heading:

Experts have made the analogy that landing on the moon is as difficult as teeing off a golf ball in New York and aiming for a small hole in Los Angeles.

"That's about accurate," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CNN on Thursday morning.

Nelson said Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander will face specific challenges at its landing site today near the moon's south pole.

"It is pockmarked with all of these craters," he explained.

The Odysseus lander, the spacecraft aiming to make a historic landing on the moon on Thursday, is roughly the size of a British telephone booth with legs attached, according to the company that made it.

Intuitive Machines is set to land the spacecraft near the moon’s south pole, an area of high interest in the space race. This region is suspected to be home to water ice that could one day be converted into drinking water for astronauts — or even rocket fuel. The south pole is also the same lunar region where NASA is seeking to land astronauts later this decade.

What's on board: The lander, nicknamed "Odie," will be equipped with six NASA payloads — an array of scientific instruments designed to test new technology or evaluate the lunar environment, such as a study of how the moon’s soil behaves during landing.

Also on board will be commemorative objects, including a sculpture representing the moon phases designed in consultation with Jeff Koons, and technology from private-sector companies, including Columbia Sportswear, which developed insulation material for the lander.

If all goes according to plan, Odysseus will spend seven days operating on the moon as the lunar lander basks in the sun. But as the landing zone moves into Earth’s shadow, experiencing lunar night, the spacecraft will be put to sleep.

Countries and companies worldwide are racing to the surface of the moon — for several critical reasons. 

So far, China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon in the 21st century. But there are more than 100 lunar missions planned to take place before 2030, according to the European Space Agency.

Here’s why:

Watch:

Success is not guaranteed as the Odysseus lunar lander prepares to attempt to touch down on the moon on Thursday. If it fails, Odysseus, nicknamed "Odie," would become the third lunar lander to meet a fiery demise on the moon in less than a year.

Russia’s first lunar lander mission in 47 years, Luna 25, failed in August 2023 when it crash-landed. Hakuto-R, a lander developed by Japan-based company Ispace, met a similar fate last April.

In February 1966, the Soviet Union’s Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to make a controlled, or “soft,” landing. The United States followed just four months later when its robotic Surveyor 1 spacecraft touched down on the moon’s surface.

Since then, only three other countries — China, India and Japan — have achieved such a milestone. All three reached the moon with robotic vehicles for the first time in the 21st century. India and Japan each pulled off the monumental feat within just the past six months.

Odysseus could also become the first spacecraft developed by a private company ever to make a soft landing — a feat that has so far remained out of reach for the commercial sector. Apart from Ispace's Hakuto-R lander, Israeli company SpaceIL attempted to land its Beresheet spacecraft on the moon in 2019. But it crash-landed because of a technical glitch.

The Odysseus lunar lander may be just one small spacecraft among a fleet under development by NASA and the US private sector, but a successful moon landing today could serve as a powerful symbol of technological prowess in a renewed space race between the United States and China.

China has already put three vehicles on the moon over the past decade and has goals similar to the US in establishing a permanent base on the lunar surface.

There is plenty of room on the moon for both the US and China, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CNN's Poppy Harlow this morning.

But the fraught geopolitical landscape on the moon is a big reason why the US has sought to update the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The treaty outlines that space should remain a realm of peaceful exploration but has long been criticized as an outdated document.

The United States introduced a new set of principles, the Artemis Accords, in 2020.

But China is not one of those signatories.

"Now, of course, we're concerned about that because a lot of the so-called civilian space program with China ... that is a lot of military as well," Nelson added.