Odysseus was the lunar lander that Intuitive Machines landed on the Moon in 2024.
The Nova-C lander, also called Odysseus, touched down near the Moon’s south polar region on 22 February 2024 during the IM-1 mission. It became the first privately built spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon and the first American spacecraft to land there since 1972.
Odysseus carried six NASA instruments under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, along with commercial payloads. Its landing demonstrated a methane-and-liquid-oxygen propulsion system and used NASA’s navigation technology to help guide the vehicle.
Odysseus landed on its side after one of its landing legs caught on the surface, but it continued transmitting data. Peregrine was Astrobotic’s lander, while Nova-C is the broader lander design family used by Intuitive Machines rather than the individual vehicle’s mission name.