CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The latest visitor to the moon, Odysseus, is reported to be in good health and functioning well, a day after marking the first U.S. landing on the lunar surface in 50 years. However, flight controllers are still working to ascertain its exact location and orientation.
Intuitive Machines, the company behind the mission, announced on Friday that they are in communication with their lander, Odysseus, and are sending commands to gather scientific data. They added, “We are continually gaining more insights about the vehicle’s specific details” concerning its location, overall health, and positioning.
The Houston-based company had targeted the south polar region, near the Malapert A crater, which is closer to the pole than any other nation’s lunar landers. This would allow NASA to survey the area before astronauts arrive later this decade.
With the successful landing on Thursday, Intuitive Machines has made history as the first private company to achieve a moon landing, a feat previously accomplished by only five countries. The mission was largely sponsored by NASA, which had its experiments on board. NASA invested $118 million in the delivery as part of a program designed to stimulate the lunar economy.
When the lander’s navigation system malfunctioned in the final hours before touchdown, one of NASA’s experiments was put to use. The lander took an additional lap around the moon to allow time for the switch to NASA’s laser system.
“Odie is a fighter,” said mission director Tim Crain late Thursday via social media.
Another experiment, a cube equipped with four cameras, was intended to detach 30 seconds before touchdown to capture images of Odysseus’ landing. However, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s EagleCam was intentionally powered down during the final descent due to the navigation switch and remained attached to the lander.
Troy Henderson from Embry-Riddle stated that his team will attempt to release EagleCam in the coming days to photograph the lander from approximately 26 feet away.
With the exact location of Odysseus on the moon still uncertain, “securing that final image of the lander on the surface remains an incredibly important task for us,” Henderson told the Associated Press.
Intuitive Machines expects the solar-powered lander to operate on the moon for just a week before lunar nightfall sets in.
The company was the second to target the moon under NASA’s commercial lunar services program. Last month, Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology attempted a similar feat, but a fuel leak on the lander cut the mission short, resulting in the craft crashing back to Earth.
Before Thursday, the last U.S. landing on the moon was by Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, who concluded NASA’s renowned moon-landing program in December 1972. NASA’s new initiative to return astronauts to the moon is named Artemis, after Apollo’s mythological twin sister. The first Artemis crew landing is scheduled for no earlier than 2026.
Agree, good punctuation and grammar: Great achievement for the company, exciting to see progress in space exploration.
Good grammar and punctuation, agree: Incredible milestone, looking forward to more discoveries in space exploration.
Great news! Exciting for the future of space exploration.