New images show the landing of Odysseus; check out

Stunning new images of the spacecraft Odysseus – the first United States vehicle to gently land on the Moon in five decades – were disclosed. The photos show details of the historic landing on the lunar surface.

Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company that developed Odysseus, released the photos during a press conference this Wednesday (28).

During the press conference, officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Intuitive Machines reported that Odysseus is emitting data. This makes the space mission considered a success, despite significant setbacks during the dramatic landing on the Moon.

Those responsible for the mission celebrated the success, applauding “the magnificent work that that lucky, robust lander did all the way to the moon,” as reported by Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines.

The spacecraft was still transmitting data from its resting place near the moon's south pole on Wednesday afternoon (28).

Odysseus had navigation problems in the hours before his landing on the lunar surface last Thursday (22). And when the vehicle reached its destination – landing in an eroded crater near the largely unexplored lunar south pole – it stumbled onto the surface, leaving the spacecraft tilted on its side.

This information was released by Intuitive Machines last Friday (23).

At the NASA and Intuitive Machines press conference last Friday (23), the status of the spacecraft and all its scientific instruments was still unclear.

But officials revealed Wednesday that the Odysseus spacecraft beat the odds — providing data from all six NASA instruments, including a dual-camera observatory added on board by Canadensys Aerospace.

Many of the instruments aboard Odysseus were designed to collect information while the spacecraft was in transit to the Moon and during the crucial moments of the descent toward the lunar surface.

NASA's Navigation Doppler Lidar, or NDL, for example, went from being an experimental instrument on a test flight to becoming a mission-critical instrument in the final hours before Odysseus touched down.