“Odysseus is alive and well.” The company Intuitive Machines released the news this Friday, but the need to insist on it and the lack of photos and other evidence about the condition of the lander suggested that something was not quite right. Finally, the company's CEO, Steve Altemus, admitted that the device “stuck its foot on the surface, tilted” and landed on its side. This is the first time that a private company has managed to land a device on the moon. The mission also marked the United States' return to satellites half a century after the Apollo program. It was a historic success, but something less.
By the time of the moon landing, there was already a long wait that suggested something was wrong. Nevertheless, the company claimed victory, assuring this Friday that air traffic controllers are communicating and commanding the on-board device to download scientific data and that the landing module has good telemetry and solar charging. Altemus began the press conference in Houston, announcing the success of the mission and its associated achievements. Then the problem arrived. He very clearly took a model of the Odysseus and showed how he believes the module capsized when it landed on the moon.
“The Odysseus lander landed at 5:24 a.m. local time yesterday, with a stable and controlled landing and a soft and safe landing,” he began. “It's pretty incredible. It was quite an exciting seven day mission to get to the moon. (…) The device is stable, near or at our planned landing site. We communicate with the lander through the large radio astronomy antennas around the world that are part of our lunar telemetry network, and with the spacecraft through several of the antennas and two of the radios. First of all, it’s phenomenal,” he said.
He explained that NASA and the company are trying to get photos. “I know everyone is hungry for these surface photos, but we have some interesting data that tells us where the lander is, and I'll explain that in a moment.” The sun shines on the solar panels, charging our batteries . We are powering the spacecraft and are 100% charged. It’s fantastic,” he continued.
In this video image provided by NASA, Steve Altemus, CEO and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, describes how the company's Odysseus spacecraft is believed to have landed on the lunar surface during a press conference Friday in Houston. February 23, 2024.AP
But there is usually a but. “If we go back to the Apollo era, there was no mission that went absolutely perfectly, so you have to be adaptable.” You have to innovate and persevere, and we persevered until the last moment to ensure that soft landing is going the way we wanted it to. Let me briefly comment on the slope of the surface.” At that moment he brought out the model of the hexagonal prism and showed how, as it descended and moved sideways, it apparently tripped over one of its supporting feet on a rock and tipped over. “We believe that this is the orientation surface of the lander on the Moon,” he said while holding the model horizontally, but assured that this had not ruined the mission and that some of the planned experiments were already underway.
“Just to clear up some confusion, yesterday we thought we were in a vertical position,” he said, noting that gravity telemetry on the fuel tanks seemed to indicate this. However, these were apparently residual quantities and new, more precise telemetry data indicates that the module has failed. “I hope we take a picture here this weekend and share it,” he concluded.
The device landed in a dangerous region full of craters and cliffs for a lunar landing, but was considered very valuable because these permanently shadowed craters are believed to contain frozen water, near the Malapert-A crater, 260 kilometers from Lunar south pole removed. The crater is named after the 17th century Belgian astronomer Charles Malapert. There, near the spot where India has already successfully landed, the gigantic resource of water ice is to be exploited for future space research. Astronauts who visit the moon in the future could use the ice in these craters for drinking water, oxygen and even fuel. Previous US missions reached the equatorial lunar regions.
One of NASA's experiments was launched when the lander's navigation system failed in the final hours before landing. The lander made an additional orbit around the moon so that it could switch to NASA's laser system at the last moment.
Another experiment, a cube with four cameras, was scheduled to launch 30 seconds before landing to capture images of Odysseus landing. But Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's EagleCam was intentionally turned off during the final descent due to the navigation switch and remained attached to the lander. Embry-Riddle's Troy Henderson said his team will try to free the EagleCam in the coming days so it can photograph the lander from about 25 feet away.
Given the ongoing uncertainty about Odysseus' position on the moon, “getting the final image of the lander on the surface remains an incredibly important task for us,” Henderson told the Associated Press.
After surging on the stock market with the moon landing this Thursday, shares of Intuitive Machines plunged this Friday outside of usual session hours, with a drop of more than 30%, when it was announced that not everything had gone well .
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