​On Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a module developed by a private company that is attempting a controlled landing of a satellite. If successful, it would be the first successful US controlled landing in 52 years. The module, developed by the company Intuitive Machines, was launched on Thursday morning, and an hour later it separated from the rocket and headed for the moon on its own.

At 8:05 a.m. (Romanian time), the Odyssey module, which is a hexagonal cylinder with six legs for selenization, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The head of the company Intuitive Machines says that he is very confident that this “soft landing” will succeed, and adds that all possible tests have been carried out on Earth.

So far, three private companies have attempted soft landings on the moon – one from the US, one from Japan and one from Israel – but all have failed.

The module is compared in size to an old British telephone box. At the time of launch with all fuel on board, the Nova-C module weighs 1,900 kg.

The site for selenization is a crater called Malapert A (after the 17th century Belgian astronomer Charles Malapert). This crater is located 280 km from the south pole of the Moon and was chosen because it is relatively flat, so the chances of a probe reaching it safely are higher.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to successfully launch this module, called Nova-C, designed by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, on its way to the moon.

The company received $118 million from NASA to design and build the lander and hopes to avoid the fate of Astrobotic, which failed to reach the moon with its Peregrine module, which had serious technical problems and burned up in the atmosphere.

The Intuitive Machines probe should travel for seven to eight days.

Controlled landings are complicated by the rocky terrain and the fact that parachutes cannot be used for deceleration because the Moon has no atmosphere. Maneuvers should occur automatically, with the help of engines.

These modules, sent by private companies, are part of NASA’s program called Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), launched in 2018. This program contracts with small private companies to test sending various payloads to the moon in preparation for the time when humans will be sent on complex missions to the moon.

The idea behind the program is to save money by awarding smaller contracts to more companies in order to conduct more tests in a shorter time.

The head of NASA said in 2018 that half of the missions in this program are expected to fail, but even then savings can be made. A typical NASA mission costs, depending on complexity, between $500 million and a billion dollars: a private company can cut costs significantly.