Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches first US moon lander mission since 1972 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as America searches for water as it prepares to send astronauts back to lunar surface later this decade

Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched a rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday morning, kicking off the first US lunar lander mission since 1972.

It came not long after a SpaceX Falcon with an unknown payload launched from Cape Canaveral Florida Wednesday afternoon. Minutes after the lunar lander lifted off, SpaceX confirmed that Falcon completed the launch and landing.

The SpaceX doubleheader came on the same day it was revealed that members of Congress had been briefed on Moscow’s plan to deploy a nuclear weapon in space to target and destroy satellites the world depends on.

NASA, the main sponsor of experiments on board, is hoping for a successful moon landing next week as it aims to boost the lunar economy ahead of astronaut missions in the coming decade.

SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted off in the middle of the night, sending the Intuitive Machines lunar lander bound for the moon, 290,000 miles away.

Intuitive Machines named its lander after Homer’s hero in “The Odyssey,” or simply “Odie.”

‘Religion, Odysseus. Now let’s make history,” said Trent Martin, vice president of space systems.

If all goes well, a landing attempt would take place on February 22, after a day in lunar orbit.

Only five countries – the US, Russia, China, India and Japan – have scored a moon landing, and no private company has done so yet.

The United States has not returned to the lunar surface since the Apollo program ended more than fifty years ago.

“There have been a lot of sleepless nights preparing for this,” Steve Altemus, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Machines, said before the flight.

The Houston-based company wants to land its 15-foot-tall, six-legged lander just 186 miles from the moon’s south pole, equivalent to landing in Antarctica on Earth.

This region – full of treacherous craters and cliffs, but potentially rich in frozen water – is where NASA plans to land astronauts later this decade. The space agency said its six navigation and engineering experiments on the lander could help pave the way.

NASA’s first entry into its commercial lunar delivery service — Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lander — stumbled shortly after launch in early January.

A ruptured fuel tank and a massive leak caused the spacecraft to bypass the moon and reenter the atmosphere 10 days after launch, breaking up and burning up over the Pacific Ocean.

Others reached the moon before they perished.

An Israeli nonprofit’s lander crashed in 2019. Last year, a Tokyo company saw its lander crash into the moon, followed by Russia’s emergency landing.

Only the US has sent astronauts to the moon, with Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt concluding the program in December 1972. That was it for US moon landings until Astrobotic’s short-lived attempt last month.

NASA is paying Intuitive Machines $118 million to get its latest set of experiments to the moon.

The company also signed up its own customers, including Columbia Sportswear, which is testing a metal jacket fabric as a thermal insulator on the lander, and sculptor Jeff Koons, which is sending 12-inch moon figures in a transparent cube.

The lander also carries Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Eaglecam, which will take pictures of the lander as they both descend.

The spacecraft will cease operations after a week on the surface.

The mission comes as Ohio House Speaker Mike Turner said members of Congress had been notified of a Russia-related threat.

It later emerged that it was linked to Moscow’s plan to deploy a nuclear weapon in space to target and destroy satellites on which the world depends. ABC news reported.

Turner asked the president to release the information so lawmakers could discuss the fallout from the ominous warning that prompted a White House response and furious speculation.

Moscow has already shown how it can be deadly from space by testing a hit-to-kill anti-satellite missile in 2021.

Russia smashed a defunct spy satellite launched in 1982 into 1,500 pieces of rubble in the attack, sparking outrage around the world.

In 2020, Moscow fired an anti-satellite weapon from its Cosmos 2543 satellite while in orbit.

Vladimir Putin has also threatened the West with his deadliest hypersonic missile yet, which could race into space and hit multiple targets on the ground.

The nuclear-capable Avangard missile, which can reportedly hit targets at 27 times the speed of sound, is seen in new footage installed in an underground launch silo in Russia’s Orenburg region.

According to Moscow, the rocket, traveling at 20,000 miles per hour and using a hypersonic glide vehicle, will be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere in less than 30 minutes before hitting any target in the world.

Members of Congress or US allies should not openly discuss or collaborate on the threat until the report is released.

They can review information related to “destabilizing foreign military capabilities” today and tomorrow at a secure location in the Capitol.

“Today, the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence made information about a serious threat to national security available to all members of Congress,” Turner said.

“I urge President Biden to release all information related to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions needed to respond to this threat.”

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., was one of the first lawmakers to review the documents in the SCIF on Wednesday afternoon.

He told reporters that the threat “is not an immediate crisis, but certainly something that we need to deal with very seriously.”

“There are a lot of very volatile things that we need to address. This is one of them,” he added.