Intuitive Machines moon lander beams home stunning photos of Earth from space
A pioneering moon lander has beamed home its first photos from the final frontier. Intuitive Machines' robotic Odysseus spacecraft snapped a few selfies with Earth in the background shortly after its Feb. 15 launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — and we can all check them out. "Intuitive Machines successfully transmitted its first IM-1 mission images to Earth on February 16, 2024. The images were captured shortly after separation from @SpaceX's second stage on Intuitive Machines' first journey to the moon under @NASA's CLPS initiative," the Houston-based company wrote Saturday (Feb. 17) in a post on X that shared four of the photos. CLPS is the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which puts agency Science instruments on private robotic moon lander s like Odysseus. These instruments are designed to collect data that will aid NASA's Artemis program, which aims to establish a crewed base near the lunar south ...