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Odysseus Moon Mission Cut Short After Sideways Landing

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The much-anticipated Odysseus moon mission, led by the private U.S. space company Intuitive Machines, has been prematurely terminated following a sideways landing on the lunar surface.

Flight control engineers at Intuitive Machines anticipate losing contact with the spacecraft on Tuesday morning, marking the end of the mission just five days after its unconventional touchdown.

The spacecraft, which had been slated for a seven to 10-day mission duration according to previous estimates from Intuitive Machines and NASA, faced a series of setbacks leading up to its unexpected landing.

New revelations have emerged regarding testing shortcuts and human error that resulted in an in-flight failure of the spacecraft’s laser-guided range finders, critical for navigation.

The head of navigation systems at Intuitive Machines, Mike Hansen, disclosed that the decision to forgo a test firing of the laser system before launch was made to save time and money during pre-flight checks at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

“There were certainly things we could’ve done to test it and actually fire it. They would’ve been very time-consuming and very costly. So that was a risk as a company that we acknowledged and took that risk.” Hansen said.

This decision proved to be consequential, as the range finders were rendered inoperable due to engineers neglecting to unlock the lasers’ safety switch before liftoff on February 15.

Despite efforts to improvise a solution to the range-finder glitch during the final descent, Odysseus ultimately made a sideways landing near the moon’s south pole.

Also Read: Intuitive Machines Launches Historic U.S. Moon Lander After 50 Years

Images captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft revealed the lander resting horizontally on the lunar surface, just a mile away from its intended landing site near the Malapert A crater.

The sideways posture of Odysseus has posed significant challenges, limiting sunlight exposure to its solar panels necessary for recharging batteries and impeding communication with the lander due to two antennae pointing toward the ground.

While the exact cause of the sideways landing remains under investigation, Intuitive Machines executives speculate that the spacecraft’s forward speed upon landing, which was twice as fast as expected, may have been a contributing factor. However, it is yet to be determined whether the use of the original laser range finders could have averted this outcome.

Despite the premature end to its mission, Odysseus made history as the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since NASA’s Apollo missions in the 1970s. It also marked the first lunar landing by a commercially manufactured and operated space vehicle, furthering NASA’s Artemis program’s goal of returning astronauts to the moon.

Intuitive Machines, which invested approximately $100 million in the lander, received $118 million from NASA under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, aimed at fostering private-sector involvement in lunar exploration.

As the mission draws to a close, Intuitive Machines is focused on gathering data until the lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light, with communication expected to cease by Tuesday morning.

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