SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has announced a significant milestone with its Falcon 9 rockets completing 300 successful missions. The space tech company shared the news on X, Musk’s social media platform, stating, “Falcon 9 completes its 300th successful mission.”
The landmark 300th mission involved the launch of the Indonesian Telkomsat Merah Putih 2 mission to orbit, as confirmed by SpaceX.
In a separate development earlier this month, Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines achieved a historic feat with the successful launch of its moon lander, the Nova-C lander named Odysseus, from Florida. This mission marked the first US lunar touchdown in over half a century and the initial one by a privately owned spacecraft, according to Reuters.
Odysseus embarked on its journey shortly after 1 am EST (0600 GMT), riding atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket provided by SpaceX at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Live coverage from NASA and SpaceX captured the awe-inspiring sight of the 25-story rocket ascending, leaving behind a fiery plume of exhaust over Florida’s Atlantic coast.
The Nova-C lander, Odysseus, is scheduled to reach its destination near the moon’s south pole on February 22 after a weeklong flight. A successful landing would mark the first controlled descent by a US spacecraft since the final Apollo mission in 1972 and the first by a private company.
Looking ahead, Intuitive Machines has ambitious plans for lunar exploration, with the IM-2 mission set to land at the lunar south pole in 2024, followed by an IM-3 mission later in the year featuring small rovers.
This mission underscores NASA’s strategy of collaborating with private companies to reduce costs for the Artemis program, which aims to pave the way for human exploration of Mars. Unlike the Apollo era, where NASA owned and operated technology, the Artemis missions involved procuring services from private companies, ushering in a new era of space exploration.
