America Is Going To The Moon Today: Here's How To Watch It Live
The United States space agency NASA made history in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon's surface. It was a monumental victory for the United States in the "space race" with the Soviet Union, a competition that has since been joined by China, Russia, India, and the European Space Agency.
The United States hasn't sent a spacecraft to the lunar surface since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, and the USSR's last lunar landing was in 1976. China sent Chang'e 3 to the moon in 2013, and India put its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover on the lunar surface last year.
Perhaps inspired by this new international competition, the United States ramped up its new Artemis program, which will send four astronauts to the moon next year. In preparation for that Artemis II mission, an unmanned US-based craft will land at the moon's South Pole today, and you can watch this bit of history live.
Odysseus is carrying twelve different payloads
The lunar lander Odysseus will attempt to touch down at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time today (22:30 GMT), and you can watch it all happen via NASA's live YouTube stream. Odysseus is a 14-foot tall landing module built by Intuitive Machines in Houston, TX. Intuitive's Texas headquarters are located just three miles from NASA's Johnson Space Center, and the company is in an ongoing partnership with the space agency to help re-establish the United States' presence on the moon.
Odysseus has been orbiting the moon since yesterday and will touch down with twelve payloads aboard, each designed to carry out specific scientific experiments. Six are NASA projects, and six are commercial endeavors. Most are designed to take measurements or images to gather information for future Artemis missions, but Columbia Sportswear is testing its omni-heat thermal protection fabric on the lander's propulsion tank, and artist Jeff Koons has created a translucent cube containing 125 steel sculptures of the moon honoring some of humankind's greatest cultural and historical achievements.