Private US spacecraft crashes while landing on the Moon

The Odysseus lunar lander tipped over on its side upon landing, Intuitive Machines, the company that built the vehicle, said in a press conference on February 23.

The Odysseus ship is tilted to one side as illustrated. Photo: NASA — The Odysseus ship is tilted to one side as illustrated. Photo: *NASA*

The information was released after Intuitive Machines initially described the Odysseus (Odie) spacecraft landing upright on the lunar surface during its historic IM-1 mission on February 22. However, Steve Altemus, the company's CEO, shared data later showing that the spacecraft most likely tipped to one side because one of its legs hit a lunar rock, according to CNN .

Altemus used a small model of the lander to illustrate the point during the press conference. Only one of the Odysseus’s cargo pieces was lying face down on the lunar surface, he said, a piece of artwork from a commercial customer of Intuitive Machines. Altemus also stressed that the spacecraft was stable, its solar panels were collecting sunlight and charging its batteries. Several NASA technology testbeds were also in operation, carrying out some of the mission’s key objectives.

Intuitive Machines had previously discovered that the Odysseus’ navigation equipment was faulty. The company opted to abandon the faulty equipment and use NASA’s experimental equipment on board, the Navigation Doppler Radar (NDL), developed by the Langley Research Center. The company’s engineers had to create software to connect data from the NDL to save the mission. Their efforts were successful, and the spacecraft landed on the lunar surface in working condition. No other American spacecraft had achieved a soft landing on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, and no commercial spacecraft before Odysseus had achieved that feat.

NASA and Intuitive Machines are working to determine whether Odysseus can accomplish all of its science goals, said Joel Kearns, associate director for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Odysseus is experiencing some issues that are affecting the data it collects from the spacecraft. Still, NASA considers the mission a big win.

Intuitive Machines is still working to determine exactly how much work Odysseus can do on the lunar surface and confirm the condition of the spacecraft after the unexpected crash. The company has not shared images of the spacecraft on the moon. It plans to deploy an onboard device called EagleCam that will take remote images of the spacecraft, Altemus confirmed.

Odysseus will likely spend nine days on the moon, according to Tim Crain, chief technical officer at Intuitive Machines. That’s longer than the original seven days planned. After that, the sun will move out of range of the solar panels. The batteries will continue to keep the spacecraft warm and running, but eventually the spacecraft will go into a deep freeze. All of its equipment will fail during the extremely cold lunar night.

An Khang (According to CNN )

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