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Odysseus, the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972, was nearing the end of its fifth day on the lunar surface still operational but with its battery in its final hours before the vehicle is expected to shut down, according to flight controllers.
Texas-based Intuitive Machines said in an online update Tuesday that its control center in Houston remained in contact with the lander while “efficiently sending scientific data and payload images to further the lander’s objectives.” company mission.
The spacecraft reached the lunar surface last Thursday after an 11-hour navigation problem and a dizzying descent that ended with Odysseus landing in a lateral or highly inclined position that has impeded its communications and solar charging capacity.
Intuitive Machines said the next day that human error was to blame for the navigation problem. Flight preparation teams had neglected to manually unlock a safety switch before launch, preventing subsequent activation of the vehicle’s laser-guided rangefinders and forcing flight engineers to hastily improvise an alternative during lunar orbit. .
An Intuitive executive told Reuters on Saturday that the safety switch failure was due to the company’s decision to forgo a test firing of the laser system during pre-launch checks to save time and money.
According to Intuitive officials, it remains an open question whether the failure of the rangefinders and the last-minute replacement of a workaround ultimately caused Odysseus to make an off-target landing.
However, the company said last Friday that two of the spacecraft’s communication antennas were out of service, pointing in the wrong direction and that its solar panels were also facing the wrong direction, limiting the vehicle’s capability. to recharge your batteries.
As a result, Intuitive said Monday that it expected to lose contact with Odysseus on Tuesday morning, disrupting the mission that contained a dozen scientific instruments for NASA and several commercial customers and was due to operate on the moon for seven to 10 days. .
NEXT TO THE CRATER WALL?
On Tuesday morning, Intuitive said controllers were still “working on final determination of the lander’s battery life, which may continue for up to 10 to 20 more hours.”
The company’s latest update indicated that the spacecraft could last a total of six days before the sun sets over the landing site.
The company’s shares closed 7% higher on Tuesday. Shares plummeted last week following news that the spacecraft had landed crookedly.
It remained to be seen how much research data and images of the payloads might be left uncollected due to Ulysses’ bungled landing and shortened lunar lifespan.
NASA paid Intuitive $118 million to build and fly Odysseus.
NASA chief Bill Nelson told Reuters on Tuesday that he understood the agency’s scientists were hoping to recover some data from its six payloads. He also said that Odysseus apparently landed next to a crater wall and was tilted at a 12-degree angle, although it was unclear whether that meant 12 degrees from the surface or 12 degrees from a vertical position.
Intuitive executives said on February 23 that engineers believed Odysseus had caught the foot of one of his landing legs on the lunar surface as he approached landing and had rolled over before coming to rest horizontally, apparently resting on a rock.
No photographs of Odysseus on the lunar surface have yet been transmitted. But an image of a NASA spacecraft in orbit released Monday showed the lander as a small speck near its intended destination in the moon’s south polar region.
Despite its not-so-ideal landing, Odysseus became the first American spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA’s last manned Apollo mission to the lunar surface in 1972.
It was also the first lunar landing by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, and the first under NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite this decade.