A spacecraft made by a US firm has landed on the surface of the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.

Intuitive Machines, which is based in Texas, launched its robotic lunar lander last week atop a SpaceX rocket. The 1,908kg Nova-C lander – known as Odysseus or ‘Odie’ – comes equipped with a range of payloads from Nasa and commercial partners that are designed to carry out a diverse array of scientific tasks on the surface of the Moon.

“After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data,” Intuitive Machines said in an X (formerly Twitter) post early this morning. “Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.”

Over the last 24 hours, the firm issued a “lunar correction manoeuvre” to the flying spacecraft and chose to undergo an additional orbit before initiating the landing sequence. The alterations to the original plan gave the firm a little more time to execute the perfect landing sequence...