Falcon 9 • IM-1
February 15, 2024, at 1:05 a.m. EST
SpaceX's Falcon 9 launches Intuitive Machines’ first Nova-C lunar lander, named Odysseus, or Odie from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Space Launch Complex 40.
Eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the rocket's reusable first stage booster B1060 landed at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Since the December 1972 Apollo 17 mission, NASA has not launched a spacecraft to perform a soft landing on the Moon.
Should Odie succeed with its mission, it will be the first private mission to gently touch down on the moon. The first CLPS payloads flew aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, which launched the inaugural mission of the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket on Jan. 8, 2024. The liftoff went well, but Peregrine experienced a propellant leak hours after deploying from the rocket's Centaur upper stage that prevented the spacecraft from attempting a lunar landing.