Landing on the moon is not easy World’s first private moon lander legs broken see photo

Odysseus Moon Lander: Sending a mission to the Moon, millions of kilometers away from the Earth, is no mean feat. Till now only selected countries have been able to land their missions on the moon. These include America, Russia, China, India and Japan. America made a record last week when the Odysseus lander of a company there, Intuitive Machines, landed on the moon. This is the first private lander in the world to do so. However, the mission has faced many difficulties. According to a report, ‘Odysseus’ made a hard landing on the Moon, due to which one or more of his legs were broken.

The 14-foot Odysseus lander landed on brown soil near the moon’s south pole last Thursday. Earlier in the year 1972, an American lander had reached the moon.

spacedotcom’s Report According to, Odysseus’s touchdown was not smooth. The 6-legged lander came down with more speed than expected and hit a place on the moon which was slightly higher. Company CEO and co-founder Steve Altemus said, this is why we made a hard landing. He said that one or two legs of the landing gear probably broke due to pressure in the landing gear.

This image illustrates Odysseus’ landing strut performing its primary task, absorbing first contact with the lunar surface to preserve mission integrity. Meanwhile, the lander’s liquid methane and liquid oxygen engine is still throttling, which provided stability. The Company… pic.twitter.com/mket4T59SH

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 28, 2024

According to the report, Odysseus stood upright for about two seconds on ground that had a slope of about 12 degrees. After that it started bending and stopped at 30 degrees. The good thing is that the mission is working. The company has also received some pictures. In one of them, what happened during the touchdown can be seen. The extent of damage to the landing legs is also visible.

This mission reached the moon in a record 8 days. On February 15, it took off with the help of SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket. The mission went to the moon on the same route by which the Apollo mission was sent about 50 years ago. American space agency NASA had signed a contract worth about thousand crore rupees with the company for this mission.