Private US lander stops working on the Moon

The Odysseus lander went into a prolonged sleep during the lunar night due to low fuel but is still capable of operating again in 3 weeks.

Odysseus broke 1 - 2 legs due to landing too hard. Photo: Intuitive Machines — Odysseus broke 1 - 2 legs due to landing too hard. Photo: *Intuitive Machines*

Intuitive Machines shut down its autonomous Odysseus spacecraft on February 29, before the cold lunar night began. Seven days earlier, the solar-powered Odysseus lander became the first private spacecraft to land softly on the moon and the first American vehicle to do so since the Apollo missions in 1972, according to Space. However, the shutdown may be just a short nap for the lander. Steve Altemus, CEO and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, hopes to wake it up in about three weeks.

Odysseus launched on February 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, beginning its journey to the Moon. The 4.3-meter-long spacecraft entered lunar orbit on February 21 and landed a day later near Malapert A, a crater about 300 kilometers from the South Pole. The landing was considered a success but not a smooth one.

Hours before touchdown, the mission team discovered that Odysseus’s laser rangefinder, which provides altitude and horizontal speed data to the spacecraft as it descends, was not working. So they found a workaround by using NASA’s experimental LIDAR (ground-penetrating radar) device on board. It was one of six payloads flying on Odysseus under a $118 million contract under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. CLPS aims to enable private U.S. landers to deliver NASA science equipment to the moon. The primary goal is to support the Artemis program, which aims to establish a human base near the lunar south pole by the late 2020s.

Odysseus also carried six other private payloads on the IM-1 mission, including a sample of insulation material Steve Altemus from Columbia Sportswear. Another private payload was EagleCam, a camera system built by a group of students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. EagleCam was scheduled to deploy from Odysseus during its descent on February 22 to take pictures of the activity from the ground. However, the mission team decided to keep EagleCam on board during landing due to positioning issues. EagleCam was finally deployed on February 28, but was unable to send pictures back to Earth before the spacecraft shut down.

Navigational issues also contributed to Odysseus’ less-than-smooth landing. The spacecraft descended a bit faster than planned. It hit a steep slope, broke a leg or two, and tipped over onto its side. This position made it difficult for the crew to communicate with Odysseus, and the lander struggled to collect the sunlight it needed to stay alive in the harsh lunar environment. Still, the spacecraft managed to achieve its estimated operating time of about a week, as Intuitive Machines had predicted. Despite the problems, both Intuitive Machines and NASA considered the Odysseus mission a success. NASA collected data from all five operational instruments on board.

An Khang (According to Space )

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