Private US moon lander takes off: 7 Things you should know about Nova-C, aka Odysseus

SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the Nova-C moon lander, dubbed Odysseus, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on Thursday.

Here are seven things about the Nova-C moon lander you must know:

1. Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines has built the Nova-C moon lander. Although it's a privately owned spacecraft, the IM-1 flight carries six NASA payloads of instruments designed to collect data about the lunar surroundings ahead of NASA's planned return of astronauts to the Moon later this decade. Moments after the launch, the mission operators in Houstons received their first radio signals from the moon lander, as it started an automated process of powering on its systems and orienting itself in space.
   
2. If Odysseus successfully soft lands on the Moon, it will be the first privately-led mission to achieve this. Israel's Beresheet triedin 2019, Japan's Hakutoin 2023 and American Peregrine in January 2024. All of them were unsuccessful in landing on the Moon. Astrobiotic's Peregrine suffered a propellant leak hours after the launch and burned up in Earth's atmosphere.
   
3. If all goes according to plan, the mission will mark the first time a US spacecraft has made a controlled landing on the lunar surface in over 50 years since the last Apollo crewed moon mission in 1972. However, during the Apollo era, NASA purchased rockets and other technology from the private sector but was responsible for their ownership and operation.
   
4. Initially, the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission was scheduled to launch on Wednesday. However, SpaceX postponed the mission as it found a problem with the liquid methane temperature used by the moon lander built on the Nova-C platform.
   
5. Odysseus is scheduled to land on February 22 at Malapert A crater near the Moon's south pole after a weeklong journey. India's Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft-landed on the South Pole of the Moon in 2023, being the first country to do so.
   
6. SpaceX plans to send Nova-C and other small landers ahead of other lunar missions, carrying instruments to closely survey the lunar landscape, its resources and potential hazards. Odysseus will study the interactions between space weather and the Moon's surface. The mission will also focus on radio astronomy, precision landing technologies, and navigation.
   
7. Intuitive Machine's IM-2 mission is scheduled to land at the lunar south pole in 2024, followed by an IM-3 mission later in the year. The IM-3 mission will deploy several small rovers.

(With inputs from agencies)