There is something about a moon landing that lifts spirits around the world. Our satellite has been circling us since memories began, bearing silent witness to humanity’s history, shining light, hope and inspiration. Poets, songwriters and sailors, like the tides, feel its pull.

An artist’s impression of what could be the first moon landing pulled off by a privately owned spacecraft.Credit: Intuitive Machines

When we finally stood on its surface, it was an American achievement. Yet the unbounded optimism of the moment united the world in a sign that all peoples, regardless of religion, race or nationality, share the same fragile planet.

The era of moon landings, moon walks and moon broadcasts began on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong took his famous step. Three-and-a-half years later, the last human footprints were left on the lunar surface by Apollo 17 astronauts in December 1972.

Lately, there have been other visitors, but surely a new moon age dawned on Friday when America returned.

Odysseus, built by a Texan company Intuitive Machines, is the first lunar landing by an American spacecraft since Apollo 17, and the first by a privately built robotic spacecraft. Last month, Pennsylvania-based Astrobotic’s hopes to be the first privateer were dashed when its Peregrine lander ruptured a propellant tank after take-off. Two earlier privateer moon ventures, one by Israel and the other by Japan, also ended in failure. Only the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan have successfully put landers on the moon, and Japan’s “SLIM” lander was only partially successful, tipping over on touchdown last month.

Odysseus’ quest is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which the space agency set up to support development of moon landers by private-sector companies which the agency can use to transport payloads to the moon and open the way. NASA’s goal is to help kickstart development of new technologies and to collect data that will be needed by Artemis astronauts, an American project planning to land near the moon’s south pole later this decade.

NASA saw the latest landing as an even greater step than Armstrong’s. “This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said.

A second Intuitive Machines mission aims to send a lander to another lunar site to search for water beneath the surface. It will carry three technology demonstrations for NASA, including a drill that will attempt to bore three feet into the ground.