By 
April 7th, 2024
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander undergoes testing. It is a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
A new video captures the flight to the lunar south pole region of Odysseus, the commercial Intuitive Machines Moon lander.
Launched on February 15, 2024, this NASA-backed IM-1 lander via the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative touched down on February 22 near the Malapert-A crater area 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the lunar south pole.
Odysseus became the first American spacecraft Moon landing since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
Image from International Lunar Observatory Association’s ILO-X wide field-of-view imager taken on February 22, 2024 about 4.2 minutes prior to Odysseus touchdown. It shows craters in the Moon’s south pole region as well as the IM-1 Odysseus lunar lander.
Image credit: ILOA Hawai’i
Odysseus made a troubled landing, compromising radio communications with the craft.
High-level mission objectives were obtained: touching down softly and safely, as well as returning scientific data to customers, said Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines. “Both of those objectives are met, so in our mind this is an unqualified success.”
Rough and tumble landing of Odysseus Moon lander, damaging its landing gear in the process.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
Scrappy little dude
In a post-landing IM-1 status report, Sue Lederer, CLPS project scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center said the bottom line was that every payload “met some level of their objectives,” labeling Odysseus “a scrappy little dude.”
About a month after Odysseus landed on the Moon, Intuitive Machines reported that they could not re-establish contact with the lander given the brutal, super-chilly 14-day lunar night, a situation that the vehicle was not designed for, thus bringing an end to the IM-1 mission.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
“Our official IM-1 mission ended on February 29th, as Odie was not designed to survive the Moon’s harsh temperatures without sunlight. While we wait for the possibility of hearing from Odie once the sun shines on the solar panels prior to the end of the month, watch our mission recap below, which includes a heartfelt farewell from Mission Director @astro2fish, commemorating the lander’s groundbreaking voyage and the wealth of knowledge delivered from the lunar surface.”
Go to the Intuitive Machines video at:
Posted in Space News
