Odysseus, the first U.S.-built spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years, could exceed expectations and return important scientific data even weeks after its originally planned 7- to 10-day operational period, mission managers said Wednesday. .
They said the lander, which carries NASA equipment that analyzes the lunar surface, will go into sleep mode in the coming hours, when its solar panels no longer receive sunlight, at the beginning of a week-long “lunar night”. Houston.
The final transmission of the Nova-C lander, designed and built by Houston-based commercial aviation company Intuitive Machines, was expected to be seen Wednesday or Thursday.
But Intuitive Machines co-founder and CEO Steve Altemus told reporters there are plans to try to reawaken the spacecraft when sunlight returns in a few weeks. If successful, it would be a remarkable resurrection of a mission that was thrown into limbo last week when Odysseus crashed on its side during descent.
“What an amazing job this tough and bold lander has done to deliver so much data, information and science to NASA and our commercial companies all the way to the moon and then on to the surface,” he said.
“This is an incredible testament to how solid and, as someone said, monstrous, that little spacecraft is.”
The reawakening attempt could occur when sunlight illuminates the solar panels once again “in the next two to three weeks,” Altemus said.
“Can we get a signal from this landing site? We’re excited about that,” he said.
The 14-foot (4.3-meter) hexagonal, six-legged vehicle made history last Thursday when it became the first private spacecraft to make a soft landing on the moon and the first U.S. mission to do so since the last manned Apollo mission in 1972.
Odie, as the lander is affectionately known by Intuitive Machines employees, touched down on the rocky and crater-rich lunar surface near the moon’s south pole, which NASA is targeting for its next crewed lander mission, Artemis III, scheduled for late 2026.
There were fears that its payload, a suite of NASA equipment designed to collect data on the moon’s environment, including analysis of potential water sources to help sustain a future moon base, had been compromised by the faulty landing.
But Altemus said the data received proved “a very successful mission up to this point.”
He said: “What we did during this mission was to fundamentally change the economics of the moon landing.
“We have opened the door to a strong and thriving cislunar economy in the future. “This is truly a point in history that we should celebrate as we move towards the next missions around the moon.”
The IM-1 mission was carried out as part of the commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) program, in which NASA pays “seed money” to private companies to develop hardware and software that can be used in Artemis missions.
NASA paid $118 million to get it off the ground; Intuitive Machines has funded another $130 million ahead of the Feb. 15 launch from Florida’s Kennedy space center aboard Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
At a separate news conference at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday, two days before SpaceX Crew 8 astronauts are scheduled to fly to the international space station aboard another Falcon rocket, NASA administrator Bill Nelson hailed the CLPS program.
“We are leveraging the few pennies we have to ensure that the commercial sector foots some of the bill. “As they continue to grow, experiment and invent, they create a moon economy,” he said.
“It’s a good example of how we share the cost of the entire exploration program as we return to the Moon, not only with commercial partners, but with international partners, which is certainly true for the Artemis program as well.
“There’s significant international investment in each of the steps we take as we go back to the Moon, so all of that leverages what we can get from Congress and do more of.”
But even with the extra funding, the Artemis program is still billions of dollars over budget and several years behind schedule. The space agency announced last month that Artemis II, a 10-day expedition to send a crew around the moon and back to test life support systems, would not launch before September 2025.
Meanwhile, Artemis III’s landing of four astronauts, including the first woman, near the Moon’s south pole will be delayed another year, until September 2026.
But Nelson remained optimistic.
“These CLPS missions will be incredibly valuable before Artemis III lands. each of these [Odysseus] “The NASA instruments are all part of getting the additional data we need,” he said.
Two more Intuitive Machines are planned to launch later this year, including an ice drill to extract materials needed for rocket fuel and another Nova-C lander containing a small Nasa rover and four small robots that will explore surface conditions.