Odysseus, the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since 1972, neared the end of its fifth day on the lunar surface still operational, but with its battery in its final hours before the vehicle is expected to go dark, according to flight controllers.

Texas-based Intuitive Machines said in an online update on Tuesday that its control center in Houston remained in contact with the lander as it “efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the company’s mission objectives.”

The spacecraft reached the lunar surface last Thursday after an 11th-hour navigational glitch and white-knuckle descent that ended with Odysseus landing in a sideways or sharply tilted position that has impeded its communications and solar-charging capability.

Intuitive Machines said the next day that human error was to blame for the navigational issue. Flight readiness teams had neglected to manually unlock a safety switch before launch, preventing subsequent activation of the vehicle’s laser-guided range finders and forcing flight engineers to hurriedly improvise an alternative during lunar orbit.

An Intuitive executive told Reuters on Saturday that the safety switch lapse stemmed from the company’s decision to forgo a test-firing of the laser system during pre-launch checks in order to save time and money.

Whether or not failure of the range finders and last-minute substitution of a work-around ultimately caused Odysseus to land in an off-kilter manner remained an open question, according to Intuitive officials.

Nevertheless, the company said last Friday that two of the spacecraft’s communication antennae were knocked out of commission, pointed the wrong way, and that its solar panels were likewise facing the wrong direction, limiting the vehicle’s ability to recharge its batteries.

As a consequence, Intuitive said on Monday that it expected to lose contact with Odysseus on Tuesday morning, cutting short the mission that held a dozen science instruments for NASA and several commercial customers and had been intended to operate on the moon for seven to 10 days.

Beside Crater Wall?

On Tuesday morning, Intuitive said controllers were still “working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.”

The latest update from the company indicated the spacecraft might last for a total of six days before the sun sets over the landing site.

The company’s shares were down 8% on Tuesday, paring losses after Intuitive said it was still in touch with the lander. Still, the stock has wiped out most of its gain since late last week.

It remained to be seen how much research data and imagery from various payloads might go uncollected because of Odysseus’ cockeyed landing and shortened lunar lifespan.

NASA paid Intuitive $118 million to build and fly Odysseus.

NASA chief Bill Nelson told Reuters on Tuesday he understood that agency scientists expected to retrieve some data from all six of their payloads. He also said Odysseus apparently landed beside a crater wall and was leaning at a 12-degree angle, though it was not clear whether that meant 12 degrees from the surface or 12 degrees from an upright position.

Intuitive executives said on Feb. 23 that engineers believed Odysseus had caught the foot of one of its landing legs on the lunar surface as it neared touchdown and tipped over before coming to rest horizontally, apparently propped up on a rock.

No photos from Odysseus on the lunar surface have been transmitted yet. But an image from an orbiting NASA spacecraft released on Monday showed the lander as a tiny speck near its intended destination in the moon’s south pole region.

Despite its less-than-ideal touchdown, Odysseus became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA’s last crewed Apollo mission to the lunar surface in 1972.

It was also the first lunar landing ever by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, and the first under NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite this decade.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

An American lunar lander that tipped over during touchdown has sent back its first images from the farthest south any vessel has ever landed on the Moon.

The uncrewed Odysseus, built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, returned the United States to Earth’s cosmic neighbor last week after a five-decade absence, in a first for the private sector.

But one of its legs caught on the surface as it came down, making it pitch over in the final act of a drama-packed journey that was saved by an improvised fix.

“Odysseus continues to communicate with flight controllers in Nova Control from the lunar surface,” Intuitive Machines said Monday in an update on X.

The post included two pictures: one from the hexagon-shaped spaceship’s descent, and the other taken 35 seconds after it fell over, revealing the pockmarked soil of the Malapert A impact crater.

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. 2/5 (26FEB2024 0745 CST) pic.twitter.com/oUcjk3bCqW

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 26, 2024

NASA is planning to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, and paid Intuitive Machines around $120 million for the mission, as part of a new initiative to delegate cargo missions to the private sector and stimulate a commercial lunar economy.

Odysseus carries a suite of NASA instruments designed to improve scientific understanding of the lunar south pole, where the space agency plans to send astronauts under its Artemis program later this decade.

Unlike during Apollo, the plan is to build long-term habitats, harvesting polar ice for drinking water and for rocket fuel for onward missions to Mars.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) probe meanwhile photographed the 4.0-meter (13 feet) tall “Nova-C” class lander on Saturday at a spot within 1.5 kilometers (a mile) of its intended landing site.

Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light. Based on Earth and Moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning. Image credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State… pic.twitter.com/FFt8CXZPIC

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 26, 2024

The student team behind an external camera that was initially meant to shoot out from Odysseus during its descent said in a weekend update they remained “optimistic” EagleCam could still be ejected from the fallen lander and snap photos from around four meters away.

Astronomer and space missions expert Jonathan McDowell told AFP the fact that Odysseus was lying on its side didn’t overly concern him.

It’s a “success with minor footnotes — I’d give it an A minus,” he said, adding that one would “prefer it to be upright, and they’ve certainly got some things to figure out for future missions,” but overall things are moving in the right direction for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

On Friday, Intuitive Machines revealed its engineers had forgotten to toggle a safety switch that prevented the spaceship’s laser-guided landing system from engaging, which forced them to upload a software patch and rely on an experimental NASA system to save the day.

“Rocket science is hard not because any one thing is super hard, but because you have to do a million easy things all right,” said McDowell of the “embarrassing” oversight.

Flight controllers will continue to download data until the lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light, which is now estimated to be Tuesday morning, said Intuitive Machines.

It is a slightly shorter mission duration than initially planned, likely as a result of the spacecraft’s awkward orientation.

Japan’s space agency also landed a spaceship wonkily on the Moon last month, but produced a surprise on Monday by waking up its SLIM lander following the lunar night, which lasts around two Earth weeks.

McDowell said the two falls might indicate the current generation of landers are too top heavy and consequently tip over too easily in low gravity, unlike the short, squat landers with splayed legs built by the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Intuitive Machines joined an exclusive club of five countries that have achieved soft lunar landings: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan. Three prior private attempts failed, including by another American company, Astrobotic, last month.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)