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Texas-based Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander will attempt to become the first privately-led mission to soft-land on the Moon at 4 AM on Friday, February 22. The lunar lander will attempt to land near Malapert A crater in the South Pole region of the Moon, not far from ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 lander.
You can watch the landing live on NASA+ (the space agency’s new streaming platform), NASA Television, the NASA app and its official website. You can also watch it right here on this page through the link below.
The American IM-1 (Odysseus) mission is not the first private mission to attempt this feat. The Israeli Beresheet failed in 2019, the same year as Chandrayaan-2, and Japan’s Hakuto failed in 2023. Houston-based Astrobiotic’s Peregrine mission, the most recent attempt, suffered a propellant leak hours after launch before it had to be burned up in Earth’s atmosphere.
If it makes the landing, Odysseus and its payloads are expected to function on the Moon for about seven days until the lunar night sets in. After lunar night sets in, Odysseus’s solar panels will not be able to power the lander. This, along with the harsh conditions near the lunar south pole, would mean that most instruments would freeze over and be unusable by the time lunar daytime returns.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, with which the space agency works with many US companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface. The IM-1 mission will provide crucial insights into the lunar surface environment around it. This will help SpaceX’s Human Landing System land Artemis 3 mission astronauts on the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
