Nova-C spacecraft carrying NASA payload lands on lunar surface

Nova-C, an unmanned spacecraft developed by Intuitive Machines, carrying NASA scientific payloads, landed safely on the lunar surface, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon

Intuitive Machines’ unmanned Nova-C spacecraft, launched into orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket last week, has successfully landed on the lunar surface. 

Intuitive Machines Flight Director Tim Crain said that the first signal was received from the spacecraft about 15 minutes after Nova-C, carrying NASA’s scientific and technological payloads as part of the IM-1 mission, landed on the lunar surface.

“What we know for sure is that our equipment is on the lunar surface and we are communicating,” he said.

Civilian space transportation company SpaceX sent Nova-C, the lunar lander developed by Intuitive Machines, into orbit on a Falcon-9 rocket last week.

The landing represented the first controlled descent to the lunar surface by a U.S. spacecraft since Apollo 17 in 1972, when NASA’s last crewed moon mission landed there with astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

It was announced that Intuitive Machines carried scientific and technological payloads to the lunar surface for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program as part of the IM-1 mission, the first lunar landing attempt.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Texas, U.S., Intuitive Machines operates as a publicly traded company.

It is known that the company has signed three contracts with NASA to carry payloads to the lunar surface under the CLPS program.

Source: Newsroom