US Lands on Moon in Historic Feat for Private Spacecraft
- Intuitive Machines shares jump after successful landing
- Flight controllers communicating with lander, downloading data
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An American-made lander touched down on the moon for the first time since the Apollo era, ending a string of failures and making it the first private spacecraft to ever reach the lunar surface intact.
The lander, built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines Inc., reached the moon at 6:23 p.m. US East Coast time on Thursday. After a brief communications blackout, flight controllers acquired a signal and confirmed the robotic craft, nicknamed Odysseus, was upright and starting to send data.