In 2018, the United States declared the Moon of strategic interest and refocused NASA on returning
to the Moon sustainably under the agency’s Artemis program. The following year, NASA awarded
Intuitive Machines its first task order to land a suite of payloads on the surface of the Moon.
Over the next four years, Intuitive Machines built an entire space program[…]
They used SpaceX to get most of the way there, everything else was on IM, but the whole thing was tasked and funded by NASA.
A company that is funded and supported by NASA.
From the press kit available on their site:
They used SpaceX to get most of the way there, everything else was on IM, but the whole thing was tasked and funded by NASA.
So, yes, the US did return to the lunar surface.
https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-1
Thanks! That’s much less bad.