As you’ve been going about your life these past few days, a spacecraft named Odysseus has been making its way from Earth to the moon.
If all goes as planned, Odysseus will land on the lunar surface on Thursday afternoon and become the first United States spacecraft to do so since 1972. A successful landing would also be the first private lunar landing in history.
Odysseus was built by a Houston-based company called Intuitive Machines that had been backed by firms including IBX, Capital Factory, and Tactico, and which went public last year via SPAC. And it was launched into space by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space juggernaut, backed by Founders Fund, Sequoia, Valor Equity Partners, and a host of other VC firms.
And just two weeks ago—on Feb. 9—four astronauts splashed down into the ocean in a SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule, chartered by VC-backed Axiom Space, after a three-week trip to the International Space Station.