Commercial spaceship set for lunar touchdown

WASHINGTON - A company from Texas is poised to attempt a feat that until now has only been accomplished by a handful of national space agencies, but could soon become commonplace for the private sector: Landing on the Moon.

If all goes to plan, Houston-based Intuitive Machines will guide its spaceship named Odysseus to a gentle touchdown near the lunar south pole on Thursday, then run experiments for NASA that will help pave the way for the return of astronauts later this decade. 

A previous effort by another US company last month ended in failure, raising the stakes to demonstrate private industry has what it takes to put an American lander on Earth's cosmic companion for the first time since the Apollo era.

"Accepting risk was a challenge posed by the United States to the commercial business sector," Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said ahead of launch. "Our collective aim is to return to the Moon for the first time in 52 years."

The company plans to run a live stream on its website, with flight controllers expected to confirm landing around 15 seconds after the milestone is achieved, because of the time it takes for radio signals to return.

As it approaches the surface, Odysseus will shoot out an external "EagleCam" that captures images of the lander in the final seconds of its descent.

About the size of a big golf cart, Odysseus is hexagon shaped and stands on six legs.

It launched on February 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and boasts a new type of supercooled liquid oxygen, liquid methane propulsion system that allowed it to race through space in quick time, snapping pictures of our planet along the way.

Its destination, Malapert A, is an impact crater 300 kilometers from the lunar south pole.

NASA hopes to eventually build a long-term presence and harvest ice there for both drinking water and rocket fuel under Artemis, its flagship Moon-to-Mars program.