Mission control celebrates moon landing after ‘faint’ signal found

A spacecraft built and flown by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines landed near the south pole of the moon on Thursday (February 22), the first U.S. touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century and the first ever achieved entirely by the private sector. Communication with the vehicle took several minutes to re-establish, and the initial signal was faint, leaving mission control uncertain as to the precise condition and position of the lander, according to flight controllers heard in the webcast.