Lunar lander Odysseus will stop working after landing sideways on the South Pole region of the Moon
The IM-1 Mission is drawing to a close.
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Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Nova-C lander successfully touched down on the Moon’s south pole region on February 22, 2024, and tipped over seconds later.
Teams still managed to maintain contact with the spacecraft.
The commercial mission marked the United States’ first return to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
It was the second mission to launch under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.
During an update earlier today, Intuitive Machines’ CEO Steve Altemus said, “We have fundamentally changed the economics of landing on the moon.”
All powered NASA payloads operated and received data.
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During descent and landing, guidance and navigation data was collected that will help improve landing precision in the future, and all three payloads that were designed to operate on the surface have received data.
Odysseus is expected to power down today once the sun is no longer shining on the lander’s solar panels and Odie will go to sleep.
But, teams will try to revive the lander in about three weeks when there is sufficient sunlight.
Joel Kearns, the Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, described IM-1 as a pathfinder mission that will pave the way for more complicated robotic missions in the future.
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