The first private spacecraft to land on the moon, Odysseus, tipped over on its side during landing. However, the vehicle is alive and responsive. The Odysseus moon lander — now the first private spacecraft to reach the lunar surface — tipped over on landing but is "alive and well," the company behind the vehicle said on Friday. The lander is said to have caught one of its six feet on the moon's surface during its final descent, tipped over and come to rest sideways, possibly leaning against a rock, an analysis by flight engineers showed, according to Houston-based Intuitive Machines. It was initially thought to have landed upright after Thursday'snail-biting touchdown. Odysseus — the first US lunar lander in over 50 years — is currently close to its intended landing site near the Malapert A crater, some 200 miles (300 kilometers) to the south pole. NASA, Intuitive Machines' main customer, aimed for it to get as close as possible to the pole to scout out the region before astronauts attempt a landing later this decade.  Receptive to communications "Odysseus is alive and well," the company's account said earlier on Friday on the social media website X, formerly Twitter. Despite being in a far from ideal position, five of the six NASA science and technology payloads were mounted on portions of the vehicle left exposed and receptive to communications, "which is very good for us," chief executive officer Stephen Altemus said. "We do have communications with the lander," he said, adding that ground crew were working to obtain the first photo images from the lunar surface from the landing site. However, the communication was limited since two of the lander's antennas were pointing toward the surface.  "We think we can meet all the needs of the commercial payloads" as well, Altemus said. Intuitive Machines mission director Tim Crain said he believed that the payloads aboard the lander would be able to operate for about nine or 10 days, after which solar power would run out when the sun sets on the landing site.  The race to the moon A total of five countries, including the United States, Japan and India, have managed to land on the lunar surface so far, with several others like South Korea trying. Japan was the latest country to score a landing, but its lander also ended up on its side last month. Last August, India landed its Chandrayaan-3 probe near the moon's south pole, marking a historic touchdown. The country has announced plans to set up a space station by 2040. 

If all goes well, the "Peregrine" will be the first US lunar craft to touch down on the moon since the final Apollo landing in 1972. It is also the first time a private US aerospace company has led a moon mission.   The first US-based spacecraft to attempt a moon landing in more than half a century blasted off in the predawn hours Monday morning from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.  The "Vulcan" rocket, built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin's "United Launch Alliance" (ULA), lifted off from the space station at 2:18 a.m. (718 GMT). On board the rocket is Astrobotic Technology's lunar lander, "Peregrine." The Pittsburgh-based private space robotics firm aims to be the first private company to land a craft on the moon. "Everything looks just spot on, just perfect," Eric Monda, a ULA mission official, said from the company's launch control room after Vulcan lifted off for the first time.  What we know about the mission Some 30 minutes into liftoff, ULA said on social media that the flight was stable as it orbited around the Earth in the first part of the journey. "Half-way through this coast period, Centaur systems remain stable as it coasts in Earth orbit, headed to a precise point in space above the Indian Ocean where the second engine firing is planned."     Soon after, the rocket's engines ignited again, "to climb from its initial parking orbit into a trans-lunar injection orbit for the Moon-bound Peregrine lander," ULA tweeted.  Scheduled to touchdown on February 23, the Peregrine lunar lander's anticipated mission will gather data about the lunar surface ahead of planned future human missions. If all goes well, Peregrine would mark the first US soft landing on the moon since the final Apollo landing in 1972.   

The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) has managed to locate Vikram, the Chandrayaan-2 lander, on Moon's surface a day after losing contact with the craft. However, Isro is yet to establish contact with Vikram; the space agency lost communications with the lander minutes before it was to land on near the south pole of the Moon on Saturday. According to sources, communication with the lander has not yet been established, reports India Today. The lander was located with the help of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which remains safe and is revolving around the Moon. The orbiter managed to shoot a thermal image of the Vikram lander. In an exclusive interview to India Today TV, Isro chief K Sivan said that the agency has managed to locate the lander using the orbiter and has attained a thermal image of it. Isro has been able to identify the lander Vikram, but the condition of the lander is yet to be ascertained. The soft-landing of Chandrayaan-2's landing module, Vikram, did not go according to plan as all ground communication was lost with it just moments before the scheduled landing late on September 7. The landing began minutes before 1:40 am Saturday, and then things went awry around 12 minutes after Vikram began its descent. Isro will investigate several factors to determine what triggered the communication loss with Chandrayaan-2's lander, Vikram. Sources have informed India Today TV that the Chandrayaan-2 team will investigate key datasets like final emissions and signals, last sets of sensor data to find out the reason behind the communication loss with Vikram lander. Source: UNB AH