Biden hails US Odysseus lunar craft landing as space milestone

US President Joe Biden hailed the touchdown of a spacecraft on the Moon as a historic accomplishment for US space research.

The uncrewed Odysseus lander landed near the lunar south pole Thursday, more than 50 years since the agency’s last Apollo 17 mission to Earth’s cosmic neighbor. A private company built the Odysseus, funded by NASA.

Biden on Saturday described the landing as “a thrilling step forward in a new era of space exploration” made by cooperation between the private and public sectors.

He said in a statement that the landing was made possible by American ingenuity, innovation, and curiosity.

Odysseus is the size of a large golf cart. Makers said it is likely lying sideways on the surface of the Moon as controllers from the grounds work to transfer data and surface photos from the robot.

Odysseus caught a foot on the surface.

Biden’s statement said the United States does hard things. America rises to the great scientific challenges of our time.

Joe Biden congratulated NASA and the Intuitive Machines team.

Intuitive Machines received $118 million from NASA to ship six experiments under an initiative. 

The US and international partners want to develop long-term habitats on the south pole of the moon.

Odysseus braked into orbit around the moon Wednesday after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched on February 15.

When engineers hurriedly wrote and tested software patches to integrate the NASA system into the lander’s navigation algorithms, Odysseus was commanded to make an additional orbit of the moon.