After the first commercial moon landing: ‘Nova-C’ lander sends images

A few days after the first successful commercial moon landing, the lander “Odysseus” sent images of the surface of Earth’s satellite for the first time. On Monday, the company Intuitive Machines published several images that ‘Odysseus’ made on Friday evening during the landing, showing, among other things, the surface of the moon.

The recordings confirmed, among other things, that ‘Odysseus’ landed in a crater called ‘Malapart A’ within 1.5 kilometers of the originally intended landing site, it was said – and is therefore further south on the moon than any other spacecraft. has ever been. Scientists suspect that there are numerous mineral resources in the area.

The lander is still communicating with the control center, it said. Data is now collected until the sun no longer reaches the landing site and charging of the solar batteries is no longer possible.

Last week, the ‘Nova-C’ lander, nicknamed ‘Odysseus’ or ‘Ody’, landed an American device on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. However, according to Intuitive Machines, ‘Odysseus’ fell when he landed and is now on its side. However, data can still be collected.

The ‘Nova-C’ lander is about the size of an old-fashioned British telephone box, has aluminum legs, weighs about 700 kilograms and can transport about 130 kilograms of cargo. NASA has used much of it for research equipment and other materials, while commercial companies have secured the rest for their projects.

The mission is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. With this program, the American space agency wants to collect as much knowledge as possible relatively cheaply and efficiently on its own way back to the moon by awarding contracts for moon landings to private companies and working with them.

Moon landings are seen as technically very demanding and often go wrong. This year alone, two planned landings turned out differently than hoped. (sda/dpa)