China declared a “complete success” after it launched a new three-person crew to its space station early Wednesday as the country seeks to expand its exploration of outer space.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told NPR he sees the U.S. in an urgent race with China to find water on the moon, and that he trusts SpaceX, despite Elon Musk's increasingly controversial profile.
Intuitive Machines, the company that built and flew the spacecraft, said it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels, expected to happen Tuesday morning.
Odysseus — the first U.S. lander in over 50 years — tipped over at touchdown and ended up on its side near the moon's south pole, hampering communications, Intuitive Machines officials said Friday.
If successful, the uncrewed spacecraft would be the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years, and would mean one giant leap for the commercial space sector.
An unmanned lunar spacecraft has captured and transmitted data analyzing lunar rocks, an achievement that could help provide clues about the origin of the moon, a Japan space agency official said
Japan is now the fifth country to pull off a soft landing on the moon. A Japanese space agency manager earlier called the landing "a breathless, numbing 20 minutes of terror!"
The mission was to be the first time an American company sent a spacecraft to the moon — and the first time the U.S. returned to the lunar surface in more than 50 years.
The first U.S. moon landing attempt in more than 50 years appeared to be doomed after a private company's spacecraft developed a "critical" fuel leak just hours after Monday's launch.
