Intuitive Machines reported on Friday that it is communicating with its lander Odysseus and sending commands to acquire science data.
But it noted: "We continue to learn more about the vehicle's specific information" regarding location, overall health and positioning.
The Houston company was shooting for the south polar region, near the Malapert A crater, closer to the pole than anyone else so NASA could scout out the area before astronauts show up later this decade.
Lunar Surface Day One Update (23FEB2024 0818 CST)— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) Odysseus is alive and well. Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data. The lander has good telemetry and solar charging.We continue to learn more about the vehicle's specific…February 23, 2024
With Friday's touchdown, Intuitive Machines became the first private business to pull off a moon landing, a feat previously achieved by only five countries.
The mission was sponsored in large part by NASA, whose experiments were on board.
NASA paid $US118 million ($A180 million) for the delivery under a program meant to jump-start the lunar economy.
One of the NASA experiments was pressed into service when the lander's navigation system failed in the final few hours before touchdown.
The lander took an extra lap around the moon to allow time for the last-minute switch to NASA's laser system.
"Odie is a scrapper," mission director Tim Crain said late on Thursday on social media platform X.
Another experiment, a cube with four cameras, was supposed to pop off 30 seconds before touchdown to capture pictures of Odysseus' landing.
But Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's EagleCam was deliberately powered off during the final descent because of the navigation switch and stayed attached to the lander.
Embry-Riddle's Troy Henderson said his team will try to release EagleCam in the coming days, so it can photograph the lander from roughly eight metres away.
With lingering uncertainty over Odysseus' position on the moon, "getting that final picture of the lander on the surface is still an incredibly important task for us," Henderson told the Associated Press.
Intuitive Machines anticipates just a week of operations on the moon for the solar-powered lander, before lunar nightfall hits.
Until Friday, the US had not landed on the moon since Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out NASA's moon-landing program in December 1972.
NASA's new effort to return astronauts to the moon is named Artemis after Apollo's mythological twin sister.
The first Artemis crew landing is planned for 2026 at the earliest.
