This time a private spaceship is going to land on the moon. The spaceship was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket owned by Elon Musk. This spacecraft was launched on Thursday.
It is known that the name of this spaceship that has been launched for the moon is Odysseus. The spacecraft will land on the South Pole of the Moon on February 22. If all goes well, this will be the first time a private spacecraft will touch the lunar surface. Methane is used as fuel in the spacecraft.
Earlier, on February 13, the scheduled launching was postponed due to temperature variations in the liquid methane.
According to the space research agency NASA, the Odysseus spacecraft will collect various data from the lunar soil. The spacecraft has six payloads.
It may be noted that, NASA has started a program called Artemis to compete with China’s lunar mission. As part of this Artemis, Odysseus is now sent to the moon. Astrobotic technology was launched for touching the lunar ground on January 4. But the spacecraft failed to go due to crew technicalities. Meanwhile, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has successfully landed a spacecraft on the South Pole of the Moon.
This time, the spacecraft was sent to the moon by solely a private initiative.