For the first time in over 50 years, America has landed on the moon, but not without some nail-biting moments.
The Odysseus robotic lander, built by Intuitive Machines and carried into space on a SpaceX rocket, touched down on the surface of the moon around 6:23 PM ET last night, making it the first American spacecraft on the moon since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
Just an hour before it was scheduled to land, a glitch developed in the lander’s onboard laser instruments designed to help it find a safe and hazard-free spot to touch down.
The lander, which is the first commercial venture to successfully land on the moon in history, will spend the next week collecting data until lunar night blocks the sunlight from its solar panels and it loses power.