Well, the U.S. is back on the moon and Kentucky is playing a role in its return.

Last week, Intuitive Machines, a company based out of Houston, landed a spacecraft on the moon with the help of Morehead State University.

We spoke to Ben Marshall for us, the executive director of the Space Science Center at Morehead State University, about the significance of the mission.

The missions Intuitive Machines won or I am one.

It is a lunar lander, and it is significant because it's the first landing on the surface of the moon by an organization other than a government 3 to 1.

Liftoff of the Falcon nine.

So you had a private rocket, SpaceX Falcon nine, that launched a private spacecraft into two machines.

One of this is affectionately known as Oli, and it was managed by a private ground network instead of NASA's Deep Space network.

And we're part of that lunar tracking data network.

NASA's Eclipse program, it's the Commercial Lunar Infrastructure Program.

And the idea is to bring companies in alongside business to work, to develop infrastructure, to support our return to the moon with humans.

And the eclipse programs are steppingstones to get NASA and and others back to the moon.

That was extraordinarily successful, despite a little mishap at the end with the mis orientation of the landing, but still incredible successful.

And we're part of that lunar tracking data network.

And so that's been a role.

We've been in flow and data.

We've been commanding the lander on the moon.

It's been a little challenging to get the commands up because the antennas are oriented not back toward Earth, but out into space.

Nonetheless, the Intuitive Machines team and the Morehead team and also working with NASA have figured out ways of very clever strategies to get get the radio waves to be received by the spacecraft and also for the spacecraft to send day to day on we for the downlink, we're now having to use the biggest radio telescopes in the world, the biggest dishes in the world, but that's been successful.

So all of those images that you've seen that were great images released today from the surface of the moon from those came down through the Lunar Data Network.

So Morehead State, in our view, is we've commanded the spacecraft to bring those signals down and get involved in the collection of the signal.

So, yeah, we've been we've been supporting every minute since it's been on the surface.

I am one Lunar Lander is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years.

It's expected to stop transmitting tomorrow because it will not be able to get sunlight on its solar panels after landing sideways on Thursday.