"Of course, everybody's wondering, are we gonna land upright?"

The Apollo 17 mission landed on the Moon on December 11, in 1972. From that point on, literally for decades, NASA and the United States did not go back to the surface of our nearest planetary body.

It was not until February 22, 2024, that another American-built spacecraft made a soft landing on the Moon. This was the Nova-C Odysseus lander built by Intuitive Machines. It landed, toppled over, but still completed most of its scientific experiments.

This first successful landing on the Moon by the first privately built spacecraft ended a 51-year gap, or 18,700 days. It was a long freaking time.

Then, it happened again. Last weekend another privately built vehicle, Firefly's Blue Ghost, landed on the Moon. Blue Ghost stuck its landing, remaining upright. That was two landings in slightly more than a year. And now, it could happen again on Thursday afternoon. Intuitive Machines is back with its second Nova-C lander, Athena. If it is successful, that would be three US landers in 377 days.

...read more at arstechnica.com