Intuitive Machines
made some history on Thursday. Its Odysseus lunar lander touched down near the moon’s south pole at about 6:23 p.m. Eastern time.
Investors, and space enthusiasts, can rewatch the event here. About 48,000 people were watching the broadcast on YouTube as of 6:30 p.m.
Communication was lost during the landing, as expected. Communication was re-established at about 6:35 p.m. The 20 minutes or so of waiting was tense. “What I can confirm without a doubt is our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting … congratulations IM team,” was the callout from Intuitive’s mission director, Tim Crain. Applause ensued. The company is working on establishing full communications.
“Congratulations to everyone involved in this great and daring quest at Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and right here at NASA,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. ”What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon.”
The landing caps an amazing week for the company. The lander started its journey to the moon on a SpaceX rocket, which also sent shares of Intuitive Machines on a wild ride. A delay caused by a SpaceX technical issue sent shares down more than 7% on Feb. 14.
The delay was only a day. The rocket launched on Feb. 15, sending Intuitive shares up about 35% that day. Then the stock gained more than 50% on Tuesday as the spacecraft headed to the moon.
Shares closed down 11.2% on Thursday, at $8.28 a share while the
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
rose 2.1% and 3%, respectively.
The stock was up almost 40% in premarket trading Friday at $11.56. All the moves have left Intuitive stock up about 206% for the month through early trading on Friday.
Whatever happens to the stock in the coming days the mission has been quite an achievement for the young space company. Intuitive’s lander is the first privately funded lander to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. Landing was not an easy feat. There is no air on the moon so parachutes aren’t helpful. And the entire process happened autonomously.
The mission is part of NASA’s commercial payload program, which is trying to use more private enterprises to keep costs low while improving access to space.
Payload delivery can be thought of as a package being delivered by
FedEx.
In the past, NASA would provide the package and, essentially, design the truck delivering the package. Now, NASA provides the package and lets a company do the rest.
Early Thursday, the Odysseus probe was orbiting roughly 58 miles above the moon’s surface. Now it will be working on the moon for about a week. There are 12 payloads on board. Six are NASA payloads.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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