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When Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander is still about 100 feet above the moon’s surface, it will eject a small box.
That box is EagleCam, a camera system built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. As it falls to the surface, the device will take photos of Odysseus landing on the moon’s surface, a sort of space selfie.
If it works, it will be the first student-built project to operate on the Moon.
The $350,000 project was the result of a 2019 visit to Embry-Riddle by Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus, an alumnus of the university.
Altemus challenged students to build a payload “with the goal of getting the first third-person view of a spacecraft landing,” said Troy Henderson, professor of aerospace engineering. “So that was the starting point.”
During Odysseus’ final descent on Thursday, a spring will push EagleCam away from the spacecraft, and as the instrument falls (it continues its motion but lacks propulsion to rotate or move), three cameras with wide fields of view will take photos. .
“No matter what happens, if we slide or fall or something like that, one of those three cameras will see the lander,” Dr. Henderson said.
Even after the EagleCam hits the ground at about 40 kilometers per hour, it should continue taking photos. The students conducted drop tests of an EagleCam model into a sand pit with several centimeters of material simulating lunar soil on top. The test version survived.
“We’re pretty confident we’ll be fine,” Dr. Henderson said.
A key to EagleCam’s success is that Odysseus must also land in operational condition. The Embry-Riddle device will send the photographs to the lander, which will then transmit them to Earth.
It was not a simple project.
“We were immersed in the design during Covid,” said Christopher Hayes, a doctoral student who served as EagleCam’s lead engineer. “So how did we adapt to designing a camera that went to the moon while we were all on Zoom in our homes?”
The pandemic disrupted supply chains and added more challenges. “We actually ordered a package of screws from a company and received it nine months later,” Hayes recalled. “Some of our initial budgets were wrong.”
There was also continued rotation as students graduated. “Then we had to fill in and make sure the new students knew what they were doing,” Hayes said.
As landing approached, Mr. Hayes said he was excited and confident. “There’s peace in knowing it’s out of our hands now,” he said. “We just have to trust that the system will do what it was designed to do.”
A few hours after landing, Hayes hopes to hear how EagleCam fared and, he hopes, see the pictures it took.