US celebrates first moon landing since Apollo 17 more than 50 years ago

A LUNAR lander robot built by an American company has become the first privately owned spacecraft to land on the moon.

- Robert Dex

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Odysseus touched down in the South Pole region at 11.23pm British time last night. The moment marked the first US landing since the final mission of the Apollo programme, Apollo 17, in 1972.

At first, there was no signal from the robot, sparking fears of a mission failure. But eventually a communications link was made and within a couple of hours Odysseus was standing upright and sending back data and pictures.

The news was confirmed by Intuitive Machines’ chief executive Steve Altemus, who said: “I know this was a nail-biter but we are on the on the surface and we are transmitting. Welcome to the moon.”