The Nova-C Odysseus moon lander landed during the night from Thursday to Friday (at 12:23 a.m. Paris time) It thus became the first private company to achieve such a feat.
“ When NASA launched the CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Service) program in 2018, it estimated the chances of overall success of the missions it financed was 50% ” says Francis Rocard, head of the Solar System exploration program at Cnes. This program aims to bring about a “ lunar economy ”, relying on private companies to stimulate innovation.