(Bloomberg) — A high-profile U.S. spacecraft that stumbled during last week’s historic moon landing advanced private sector space exploration but fell short of customers’ overall goals. It’s Wednesday night after the mission, and it’s getting dark.
After six days on the moon, the “rugged” and “brave” spacecraft will soon lose its ability to transmit data, said Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, which built and operated the lander. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) told reporters on Wednesday.
The spacecraft, called Odysseus, collected “a tremendous amount of data, information and science,” Artemus said. “This is amazing evidence of how sturdy that little spacecraft is.”
Artemus said Intuitive Machines will wake Odysseus after about two weeks of moonlit nights after it went into hibernation around 7 p.m. ET on Wednesday, allowing the ship’s solar panels to use the returning sunlight. He said he plans to check whether it is available.
NASA paid Intuitive Machines about $118 million for the lunar trip, which carried payloads for the space agency and commercial customers. The mission is part of NASA’s broader $2.6 billion strategy to leverage private sector technology to explore the Moon in preparation for crewed missions later this year.
This was the first time a civilian lander reached the moon intact and America’s first successful landing on the moon in more than 50 years. It also overcame a series of failures by other companies at a time when national interest and investment in lunar exploration was being revived.
However, Odysseus’ earlier-than-expected landing limited communications from the moon’s little-explored south pole. Company executives announced Wednesday that Intuitive had developed a workaround that allowed them to communicate with customers’ devices and send about 350 megabytes of engineering and scientific data to their homes.
Still, the mission endured other setbacks. Because of the rough landing, which left the craft tilted about 30 degrees, the system was unable to study how the engines kicked up lunar dust. Another camera designed by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was unable to deploy to capture the landing, but flight controllers were later able to fire it. No images returned.
“What does the future hold? Number one is more cameras,” Intuitive Chief Technology Officer Tim Crain told reporters.
Later this year, Intuitive hopes to send another lander to the moon’s south pole with equipment to collect and analyze soil at various depths to look for water. The third mission will send a number of payloads, including a shoebox-sized robot that will rotate around the Moon’s Liner Gamma Vortex and collect 3D images.
(Updates mission details from the 7th paragraph onwards.)
©2024 Bloomberg LP