Private US lander touches down on Moon

'Your order was delivered… to the Moon!,' NASA noted.

Private US lander Odysseus managed to touch down on the Moon on Thursday.

"Odysseus has a new home," parent company Intuitive Machines said.

NASA meanwhile exclaimed "Your order was delivered… to the Moon!"

The space agency further said that the "uncrewed lunar lander landed at 6:23pm ET (2323 UTC), bringing NASA science to the Moon's surface," adding, "These instruments will prepare us for future human exploration of the Moon."

This landing comes more than half a century after the Apollo mission.

The vehicle, targeting a crater named Malapert A near the moon's south pole, is carrying a suite of scientific instruments and technology demonstrations for NASA and several commercial customers designed to operate for seven days on solar energy before the sun sets over the polar landing site.

The NASA payload will focus on collecting data on space weather interactions with the moon's surface, radio astronomy and other aspects of the lunar environment for future landers and NASA's planned return of astronauts later in the decade.

(With Reuters inputs)