An American company has made history by becoming the first commercial outfit to put a spacecraft on the Moon.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines landed its Odysseus robot near the lunar south pole, more than 50 years on from the last Apollo mission in 1972.

It was an important moment, not just for the commercial exploitation of space, but for the US space programme in general.

Nasa had purchased room on Odysseus for six scientific instruments, and its administrator Bill Nelson was quick to add his congratulations to Intuitive Machines for a mission he described as a “triumph”.

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