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The Odysseus spacecraft has dispatched new photos it captured of the lunar floor through the lander’s harrowing strategy to the moon. The automobile softly touched down on the moon on Thursday, changing into the primary US-made lander to take action for the reason that Apollo period.
The grainy photos had been shared by Intuitive Machines, the corporate that developed Odysseus, on Monday morning. The corporate had initially projected that the lander may ship the primary photos captured from the lunar floor within the hours after touchdown, however speaking with the spacecraft has confirmed difficult.
The mission workforce believes Odysseus tripped on the lunar soil and landed on its facet, resting on a rock, which can have left a number of the automobile’s antennas pointed in an inopportune route, Intuitive Machines revealed Friday.
In its replace Monday, the corporate additionally mentioned it now expects to lose contact with Odysseus on Tuesday — days sooner than initially hoped.
“Flight controllers intend to gather information till the lander’s photo voltaic panels are now not uncovered to gentle,” the corporate mentioned within the replace posted on the social media platform X. “Based mostly on Earth and Moon positioning, we consider flight controllers will proceed to speak with Odysseus till Tuesday morning.”
At that time, Odysseus can have been working lower than 5 days on the lunar floor. The corporate had prompt in earlier updates that the lander may function for up to nine days.
A picture launched by firm Friday confirmed a view of the moon’s Schomberger crater captured by the spacecraft throughout its descent.
The pictures shared Monday give one other glimpse at Odysseus’ journey.
“Odysseus captured this picture roughly 35 seconds after pitching over throughout its strategy to the touchdown website,” the corporate mentioned in regards to the clearer of the 2 pictures from the spacecraft shared Monday on X.
The spacecraft was anticipated to “pitch over” — turning itself upright after transferring horizontally by way of area — simply earlier than touchdown.
“The digicam is on the starboard aft-side of the lander on this part,” the Intuitive Machines put up famous, referring to the appropriate rear portion of the automobile.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, which has been circling the moon since 2009, additionally captured a picture of Odysseus’ touchdown website from afar.
Intuitive Machines shared Odysseus’ exact location: The spacecraft is sitting on the coordinates 80.13°S and 1.44°E on the moon, resting at about 2,579 meters (8,500 ft) in elevation.
The corporate says the automobile landed inside 1.5 kilometers (5,000 ft) of its supposed touchdown website, “representing the furthest south any automobile has been in a position to land on the Moon and set up communication with floor controllers.”
On board Odysseus are six science and tech demonstration payloads from NASA, which the area company paid Intuitive Machines — through a contract value as much as $118 million — to fly to the lunar floor.
Odysseus additionally carried a couple of items of cargo from the personal sector, together with a murals and a digicam, referred to as EagleCam, that was designed to pop off the lander and seize a “selfie” of the spacecraft throughout its last descent.
EagleCam — which was designed by college students at Embry-Riddle College in Florida — was not ejected, nonetheless, due to last-minute navigation points, which required the lander to depend on experimental {hardware} from NASA.
Groups on the bottom are nonetheless working by way of how EagleCam may be deployed now that it’s recognized that Odysseus is mendacity on its facet.
“Telemetry information confirms that the Embry‑Riddle CubeSat remains to be absolutely operational, nonetheless, and the workforce now intends to deploy its digicam system to seize imagery of the lander in its present state, providing worthwhile information that would assist Intuitive Machines refine its plans transferring ahead,” Embry-Riddle mentioned in an replace on Sunday.