KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (BDPA Houston) — On Thursday, February 15 at 1:05 a.m. ET, SpaceX launched the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission to lunar transfer orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Today, a robotic spacecraft named Odysseus touched down on the moon’s south pole at 5:23 p.m. CT. The probe is the first U.S. vehicle to touch the lunar surface since 1972.

This was the 18th flight of the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34, Transporter-6, and 12 Starlink missions.

Named after the Greek hero in Homer’s poem “The Odyssey,” the Odysseus lander was deployed aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Intuitive Machines built the Odysseus to carry science payloads for NASA and other private customers to the lunar surface for its IM-1 mission. Formally called a Nova-C, the lander is a 14-foot-tall hexagonal cylinder with six legs that the space company has operated from a mission control center in Houston, TX.

*Developing story: Follow bdpatoday® and related articles on LinkedIn.

^{— Sources and photos: Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and NASA}

---

_{A D V E R T I S E M E N T}