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Odysseus lander mission expected to end early due to power issue

NASA and Intuitive Machines may have made history recently with the first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years, but it looks like the mission will come to an end much sooner than hoped. As the Odysseus lander came in for its descent last week, it caught on the surface and tipped over onto its side. Now, Intuitive Machines has announced that it expects the lander to stop communications on the morning of Tuesday, February 27 — cutting the mission shorter than the week or more on the surface that was originally hoped for.

Intuitive Machines also released a low-resolution image taken after the spacecraft pitched over, showing its view of the moon’s surface:

Odysseus captured this image approximately35 seconds after pitching over during its approach to the landing site. The camera is on the starboard aft-side of the lander in this phase
Odysseus captured this image approximately 35 seconds after pitching over during its approach to the landing site. The camera is on the starboard aft side of the lander in this phase. Image used with permission by copyright holder

“After understanding the end-to-end communication requirements, Odysseus sent images from the lunar surface of its vertical descent to its Malapert A landing site, representing the furthest south any vehicle has been able to land on the moon and establish communication with ground controllers,” the company wrote in an update.

The problem seems to be that the solar panels of the lander will soon stop collecting sunlight, so the lander will run out of power. “Based on Earth and moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning,” the company wrote.

In addition to this update, NASA also shared an image of the lander on the moon’s surface captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. It shows the dot of the lander as seen from orbit at an altitude of around 56 miles above the surface:

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, called Odysseus, on the Moon’s surface on Feb. 24, 2024, at 1:57 p.m. EST). Odysseus landed at 80.13 degrees south latitude, 1.44 degrees east longitude, at an elevation of 8,461 feet (2,579 meters). The image is 3,192 feet (973 meters) wide, and lunar north is up.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image of the Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, called Odysseus, on the moon’s surface on February 24, 2024. NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University

This shows that the lander is in a relatively steep crater of 12 degrees, which could have contributed to challenges with the landing.

It remains to be seen how much data the Odysseus lander will be able to collect and send to Earth given its limited supply of power. It’s also not fully known to what extent the tipping of the lander has impacted the payloads on board, although in an update last week, Intuitive Machines did say that at least some of the instruments were operational and collecting data.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
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