The Odysseus probe has been capturing the attention of the scientific community for a whole week. It was the return of the United States to the Moon, in addition to being the first private mission.
His landing was challenging, but he managed to reach the lunar south pole where his destination was. However, she faced a significant setback as she was descending and that impacted her premature return to Earth.
Taken on February 27th, flight controllers commanded Odysseus to capture a new image using its narrow-field-of-view camera. Previous attempts to send photos from landing and the following days returned unusable imagery. After successfully transmitting the image to Earth, flight… pic.twitter.com/Qv0C3aSV9H
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 28, 2024
What happened to Odysseus?
The defect was discovered just two hours before the moon landing: The sensor in charge of measuring the distance to the Moon was inoperative because it had been deactivated as a precaution and was not reconnectedr, forcing an emergency adjustment.
Recommended
This adjustment involved improvising and implementing plan B, which consisted of take an extra lap around the Moon and prepare a software update to use an alternative altimeterNASA’s experimental NDS LiDAR sensor.
But despite the efforts, Odysseus faced difficulties processing NASA sensor data in real timeand lost the accurate readings 15 kilometers from the surface of our natural satellite.
Therefore, already in the final moments before the moon landing, the ship only depended on its cameras to determine its height and descent speed during descent.
The result? Basically, The landing was rougher than expected. The ship hit the ground at three times the speed and with a significant lateral displacement, which caused one of its legs to break.
With everything, Odysseus managed to remain operational, tilted at an angle of 30 degreesalthough with difficulties in producing energy due to its inhospitable orientation.
This incident marked one of the 11 critical challenges that Intuitive Machines estimates it had to overcome in 12 days, since the launch of Odysseus aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
And there are also failures in the star tracker, the realization of a moon landing without human intervention, among others. Of course, compared to historical moon landings carried out by Soviet probes or countries like the United States or China, the Odysseus moon landing, although eventful, It joins a short list of successful landings.
On Feb. 22, 2024, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander captures a wide field of view image of Schomberger crater on the Moon approximately 125 miles (200 km) uprange from the intended landing site, at approximately 6 miles (10 km) altitude . pic.twitter.com/b8EM4cOZbS
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 23, 2024